Impact of psychiatric comorbidity on length of hospital stay for medical/surgical patients: a preliminary report.

The impact of psychiatric comorbidity on the length of hospital stay was addressed in a study of all medical/surgical patients discharged in 1984 from the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City (N = 37,370) and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago (N = 21,889). At both hospitals the mean +/- SD length of stay of the patients with psychiatric comorbidity was significantly longer than that of the other patients: 19.8 +/- 33.3 versus 9.2 +/- 15.3 days at Mount Sinai Hospital and 13.7 +/- 27.7 versus 8.3 +/- 13.2 days at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Early identification of patients with psychiatric comorbidity would permit appropriate psychosocial intervention, which might shorten their hospital stays.