Seasonal pattern of psychiatry service utilization in a tertiary care hospital

BACKGROUND: Seasonal and monthly variations in utilization of psychiatric services have been inadequately studied in India. AIMS: This study sought to determine the pattern of psychiatric services utilization by patients with four broad categories of diagnosis (mood disorders (F30-39): neurotic stress-related and somatoform disorders (F40-48), schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders (F20-29) and mental and behavioral disorders due to psychoactive substance use (F10-19) in different seasons and months of the last six years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a teaching hospital data-based study of new patients diagnosed with psychiatric illness in the department of psychiatry, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh. Four diagnostic groups consisting of 12058 psychiatric patients who had been diagnosed and treated in the department of psychiatry of this institute from 1999-2004 were included in this evaluation. Bed occupancy rate (BOR), average length of stay (ALOS) of inpatients and seasonal index were determined. Information about weather variables (mean daily temperature, mean rainfall) was collected from the meterological department of Chandigarh. RESULTS: Psychiatric services were utilized by 31.1% of patients with mood disorders in the summer and by 34.23% of patients with neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders in the autumn. Statistical analysis revealed significant difference in new cases of these two groups of disorders in different seasons. CONCLUSION: Our study showed a significant relationship between utilization of psychiatric patients especially with mood disorders and neurotic, stress related and somatoform disorders with season (summer and autumn respectively).