Solar activity and admissions of psychiatric inpatients, relations and possible implications on seasonality

Admission data for a month, from a single psychiatric unit, were examined for over 1800 psychiatric inpatients during the period of 1977 to 1987, to assess their correlation with 10 parameters of geophysical activity. This pilot study indicates two statistically significant correlations between the numbers of first psychiatric admissions per month and the level of solar radioflux in the corresponding month (p less than 0.05) and sudden magnetic disturbances of the ionosphere (p less than 0.01). There is a statistically significant inverse correlation between the number of first psychiatric admissions per month, with the index of geomagnetic activity (GMA) (p less than 0.05) and with the number of hours of positive ionization of the ionosphere in the corresponding month (p less than 0.01).