About 60% of people with mental illness developed co-morbid medical and physical illness that invariably worsens their lives. However, most of the studies regarding this issue were done either in the out-patient or community settings, ignoring long stay inpatients. Locally, no data exists among long stay patients in psychiatric institutions. The aim of this retrospective study was to look at the prevalence of physical illness among long-stay patients and to compare the occurrence of physical illness before and after admission to the psychiatric institution. We found that 85 (63.4%) out of 134 subjects there was suffering with co-morbid physical and medical illnesses. There were 33 (24.6%) subjects with hyperlipidaemia, 22 (16.4%) subjects with hypertension and 17 (12.7%) subjects with diabetes. Approximately 75 (55.9%) subjects developed medical illness after admission. In conclusion, long-stay psychiatric patients are at a high risk of developing medical problems that tends to begin after admission to the psychiatric institution.
Study site: Hospital Bahagia, Ulu Kinta, Perak, Malaysia