What is the usual length of stay in a psychiatric ward?

Admission statistics can provide valuable data for planning and policy in the NHS. However, there has been little agreement about meaningful ways of summarising and expressing such data. We set out to (i) explore the distribution of length of inpatient stay and to examine the most appropriate measure of central tendency; and (ii) examine the relationship between severity of mental illness and length of stay.

Length of stay was recorded for a 12-month cohort of psychiatric admissions to a district general hospital psychiatric unit. These data were compared with a previous cohort study and also with DoH statistics.

Length of inpatient stay followed an exponential decay curve. The median length of stay for all three cohorts examined was approximately 15 days. Absence of serious mental illness was significantly associated with shorter length of stay.

Length of stay is not normally distributed and so the median value is the preferred measure of central tendency. All cohorts examined showed a median value of around 15 days. Large numbers of patients are admitted for a week or less which has implications for inpatient and community services. Qnt] Psych Clin Pract 2004; 8: 53-56).