Mental Comorbidity and Its Contribution to Increased Use of Acute Care Hospital Services

About one in five Canadians have suffered from a mental condition at some point in their lives. Like other health conditions, mental conditions represent an economic burden to society, and costs are often comparable to physical conditions such as heart disease. Expenditures on mental conditions and addictions for Canadian provinces in 2003/2004 were $6.6 billion, of which $5.5 billion was from public sources.

Major psychiatric conditions are often associated with physical comorbidity - in particular, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and respiratory conditions. Reasons for this association are diverse, and not fully understood. Many health conditions increase the risk for a mental condition. Mental comorbidity can complicate help-seeking, diagnosis, and treatment, and it influences prognosis. Hence understanding the burden of mental conditions as a comorbid condition among those with physical morbidities is important.

This report represents an assessment of a comprehensive set of factors associated with acute-care hospitalizations for mental conditions in Canada. The first part explores the overall burden of a mental condition as the most responsible condition (the condition considered most responsible for the hospitalization) and as a comorbid condition (a diagnosed condition other than the most responsible for the hospitalization) in acute-care hospitals in Canada. It presents the number of hospitalizations, the number of hospital days and the average length of stay of a hospitalization. In the second part, linked health survey and hospital data are used to describe the socioeconomic and lifestyle factor characteristics of patients who were admitted to an acute-care hospital with a mental condition within four years after responding to the survey.