The effect on diagnostic rates of assigning patients to ethnically focused inpatient psychiatric units.
OBJECTIVE
The authors examined whether assigning patients from three ethnic groups-blacks, Latinos, and Asians-to three psychiatric inpatient units that provided culturally appropriate treatment to those groups would affect rates of diagnosis of various psychiatric disorders.


METHODS
Retrospective administrative data for 5,983 inpatients at a large urban community hospital with several ethnically focused units were examined. The data represented 10,645 admissions between 1989 and 1996. Chi square analyses and Stuart-Maxwell tests of symmetry and homogeneity were used to assess the relationship between matching patients to ethnically focused units and the rates of major psychiatric illnesses among Asian, black, and Latino patients compared with whites.


RESULTS
Ethnic differences in diagnostic rates were consistent with the results of previous studies. Black patients had more diagnoses of psychotic disorders and fewer diagnoses of affective disorders than other ethnic minorities or whites, and Latino patients had more nonspecific diagnoses. Matching inpatients to ethnically focused units did not have a marked effect on patterns of diagnoses among black patients, but an association was observed for Latino patients, particularly those who had only one admission. No significant diagnostic differences were found between Asian patients and whites, irrespective of whether the Asian patients had been ethnically matched to a specialty focus unit.


CONCLUSIONS
The effect of referring inpatients with serious mental illnesses to an ethnically focused psychiatric unit varied by ethnic group, probably because each specialty unit functioned differently, depending on the needs of its particular patient population.
Mathews
Carol A
CA
Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0810 La Jolla, California 92093-0810, USA. camathews@ucsd.edu
Glidden
David
D
Hargreaves
William A
WA
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology