Prolonged Hospitalisations in People With Dementia and Comorbid Mental and Behavioural Disorders-A Data Linkage Study

To estimate the prevalence of extreme behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in hospitalised patients in comparison with people with dementia with a long hospital stay but no mental health and behavioural problems related to dementia.

Retrospective analysis using the Admitted Patient Data Collection for people aged ≥ 50 with a diagnosis of dementia who had a long stay (defined as ≥ 42 days) in a public hospital between January 2015 and December 2019.

New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

People with dementia aged ≥ 50 years with long stays in NSW hospitals.

Characteristics of behaviour-related long stays (BRLS) and non-behaviour-related long stays (NBRLS) cohorts were compared using Welch's t-test and Fisher's exact test.

There were 115 people with dementia who had 120 BRLS (range 42-2043 days, median 86 days, IQR 53-151 days) and 6186 people with dementia who had 7523 NBRLS (range 42-5750 days, median 61 days, IQR 49-84 days). Those in the BRLS cohort were younger by a mean of 5.96 years (p < 0.001; Welch's t-test, 95% CI 4.18-7.74) and more likely to be men (0.0062, p < 0.001, Fisher's exact test). BRLS occurred predominantly in non-psychiatric public hospitals (92.4%). People with BRLS were more likely to have mental health comorbidities (n = 65, 56.5%) than people with NBRLS (2011, 32.7%).

BRLS in people with dementia are less common than NBRLS and are more likely to occur in the context of mental health comorbidities and in younger males.