Characteristics of a nationwide cohort of psychiatric patients--with special reference to the elderly and the chronically admitted.

The pattern of psychiatric care has changed over the last decades with an extension of outpatient facilities, a decrease in the number of chronically admitted and an increase in the number of shortlasting admissions. A cohort of first time admitted psychiatric patients to Danish institutions in 1970 was followed for 10 years with the purpose to describe the characteristics of the population with multiple admissions. The cohort comprised 12737 patients with 35497 admissions. It was divided into 3 groups, one - 6470 patients - consisting of those with 1 admission, one - 744 - consisting of those continuously admitted to the termination of the study period or their death, and one - 5523 - consisting of those with several admissions. Patients chronically admitted tended to be older, and among them the senile and cerebrovascular disorders were dominating with the non-organic disorders in total comprising less than 10% of the patients. Significantly more females than males were admitted for more than 5 years. Patients with multiple admissions had in total shorter admission periods than the chronically admitted. Males had significantly more admissions than females and 8.2% compared with 3.9% of females had 10 admissions or more.