OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to evaluate mean hospitalization time (MHT) and patient diagnosis. METHODS: Records of 2,247 patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital from January to December 2004 were reviewed to retrieve MHT, age, sex, origin and diagnostic categories. Measures of central tendency and dispersion, Student's t, Kruskal-Wallis or analysis of variance, chi-square and Pearson tests were used for statistical analyses at a 5% level of significance. RESULTS: Of all patients, 59.8% were from Campo Grande (MS), 65.5% were male (p=0.000), and 43.3% had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. No significant differences in age were found between sexes (p=0.080). Overall MHT was 27.66 days. A significant difference in MHT was found in diagnostic categories (p=0.001) between the groups of patients from different origins (p=0.045): patients from cities farther than 200 km from Campo Grande had a longer hospital stay (29.1 days). Statistical differences were also found for the distribution of diagnostic categories when analyzed according to number of admissions (p=0.000), for the distribution of the main diagnoses (p=0.000); and for MHT according to patient origin (p=0.000). CONCLUSIONS: The THM is within the acceptable level recommended by the Brazilian Department of Health.
Mental health; length of stay; diagnosis
