Seasonal hospitalization in patients with mood disorder

Background

Several studies have indicated the participant role of the season of the year as a factor of manifestation of mood disorders. Furthermore, although the seasonal pattern of admissions of patients with mood disorders have been extensively studied in international bibliography, just few relative references are present in Greece. The objective of this study is to investigate the seasonal necessity of hospitalization in Greek patients with mood disorders.

Materials and methods

The demographic characteristics of 448 inpatients diagnosed with mood disorder during a four years' period were reviewed. We specifically recorded sex, age, duration of hospitalization, season of admission and the number of patients hospitalized involuntary.

Results

Females were statistically more (x2 p<0.05) than males (60.9% vs 39.1%). Mean age of the sample was 44.7 years (±13.61) whereas mean duration of hospitalization was 18.85 days (± 16.74). Age and duration of hospitalization doesn't seem to differentiate as to sex (t test p>0.05). The number of involuntarily hospitalized patients doesn't differentiate as to season of admission (x2 p>0.05) however we observed an increase of admissions of voluntarely hospitalized male patients in spring (x2 p<0.05). Finally, the duration of hospitalization is not influenced by season of admission. Also, the age factor is indipendent to the season of hospitalization (ANOVA p>0.05).

Conclusions

The results report an increase of necessity of hospitalizations in patients with mood disorders in spring, a finding which is in agreement with relevant international studies. Increased sunlight or environmental temprature may be risk factors. Further studies are required in order to investigate if these findings are related to weather conditions or other risk factors.