TITLE:
Hospitalisation for Bipolar Disorder: Comparison between Young and Elderly Patients
AUTHORS:
Isabelle Rouch, Claude Marescaux, Catherine Padovan, Thierry D’Amato, Benoit Saitta, Bernard Laurent, Romain Rey, Alexis Lepetit, Jean Michel Dorey
KEYWORDS:
Bipolar Disorder, Elderly, Hospitalisation
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.1,
January
26,
2015
ABSTRACT: Although Bipolar Disorder (BD) often
affects young subjects, the number of elderly patients suffering from BD is
rising as life expectancy increases. Few studies addressed the hospitalisation
characteristics according to patient age. The goal of this preliminary study
was to compare the hospitalisation characteristics of young and elderly
patients suffering from BD admitted in a psychiatric hospital. The data were
selected from the French nation-wide hospital database for psychiatry. The
study included patients hospitalised in a French psychiatric hospital from
January 2002 to December 2012. The hospitalisation characteristics were
compared between young (YBD) and elderly bipolar patients (EBD). A total of
1842 patients were hospitalised during the 11-year period. Among them, 707
(38.4%) were 60 years old and over. The mean length of stay was significantly
longer for the EBD group than for the YBD group (48.1 vs 30.4 days, p