title: [Geriatric vs. non-geriatric psychiatric hospitalization to the psychiatric services of a general hospital in Chile].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It is estimated that Chilean geriatric population (=65 years) will hit 16% in the year 2030. Psychiatric longer stays have been described for those equal 65 years vs. less than 65 years. We aim to describe the characteristics associated with lengths of stay in our psychiatric unit.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective review of 3112 admissions between July 2001 and June 2010 to the general psychiatric service of the Pontific Catholic University of Chile.
  
  
  RESULTS
  5.1% (n=132) of the sample was geriatric patients. The average length of stay for this group was 12.4 days (p=0.41). Both the geriatric and non-geriatric population presented a high prevalence of affective disorders (63.7% and 55.1%, respectively). In the geriatric group, there was a higher presence of bipolar disorder (27.3 vs. 19.5%; p less than 0.05) and dementia (16.7% vs. 0.5%). In contrast, for = 65 years, there was significantly less prevalence of adaptive and anxiety disorders (3% vs. 13%; p less than 0.01). There was just one case of personality disorder and no cases of eating disorders in the geriatric group. There were no differences in the lengths of stay according to diagnosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We did not find longer stay times, in general or associated with specific diagnoses, in geriatric patients versus non-geriatric patients.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Psiquiatría, Clínica UC San Carlos; Departamento de Psiquiatría, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. iiaedo@uc.cl.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Aedo
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Santander
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Ximena
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fuentes