Data from 105 psychiatric patients in the adolescent, young adult, and
older adult age ranges and in various diagnosis-related groups confirmed
the hypothesis that patients' length of stay in a hospital for a
psychiatric disorder is increased by greater amounts of stress and
decreased by higher levels of functioning. The authors propose a formula,
length of stay = function of axis IV score/axis V score, to test this
relationship. The findings point to a potentially useful approach for
making decisions on length of stay, i.e., the use of more reliable scales
than the global rating scale of axis V in DSM-III.
Abstract Teaser