22 Percent of Hospital Admissions Have Mental Disorders

Federal authorities report that about 1.4 million hospitalizations in 2006 involved patients who were admitted for a mental illness. Additionally, another 7.1 million patients had a mental disorder in addition to the physical condition for which they were admitted.

The 8.5 million hospitalizations involving patients with mental illness represented about 22 percent of the overall 39.5 million hospitalizations in 2006.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that of the nearly 1.4 million hospitalizations specifically for treatment of a mental disorder in 2006:

• Nearly 730,000 involved depression or other mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder.
• Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders caused another 381,000.
• Delirium — which can cause agitation or inability to focus attention — dementia, amnesia and other cognitive problems accounted for 131,000.
• Anxiety disorders and adjustment disorders — stress-related illnesses that can affect feeling, thoughts, and behaviors — accounted for another 76,000.
• The remaining roughly 34,000 hospitalizations involved attention-deficit disorder, disruptive behavior, impulse control, personality disorders, or mental disorders usually diagnosed in infancy or later childhood.

The report uses statistics from the 2006 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a database of hospital inpatient stays that is nationally representative of inpatient stays in all short-term, non-Federal hospitals.

The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the United States and include all patients, regardless of insurance type, as well as the uninsured.

This AHRQ News and Numbers is based on data from Hospital Stays Related to Mental Health, 2006 (HCUP Statistical Brief #62, PDF).

Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality