According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), one in five hospital admissions are for mental disorder-related conditions. A report published last October 2008, states that about 1.4 million hospitalizations in 2006 involved patients who were admitted for a mental illness, while another 7.1 million patients had a mental disorder in addition to the physical condition for which they were admitted, according to the latest News and Numbers from the AHRQ.
The 8.5 million hospitalizations involving patients with mental illness represented about 22 percent of the overall 39.5 million hospitalizations in 2006. AHRQ's analysis found that of the nearly 1.4 million hospitalizations specifically for treatment of a mental disorder in 2006 broke down as follows:
1. Nearly 730,000 involved depression or other mood disorders, such as bipolar disease.
2. Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders caused another 381,000.
3. Delirium—which can cause agitation or inability to focus attention—dementia, amnesia and other cognitive problems accounted for 131,000.
4. 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.
This data is consistent with pharmacy data that reports that among the top five most prescribed drugs in the United States, four are for mental disorders diagnosis. This are pretty scarry statistics! Have we gone too far as a society?
www.ahrq.gov