[Could the day hospital wards be a possibility of reducing treatment costs in psychiatry?].

The aim of the article is a presentation of the possible manner in which cost reduction of psychiatric treatment could be achieved by introducing a day hospital system. Based on literature, a similar improvement in clinical and social outcome between both partial and full hospitalization was shown. The comparison of costs in the studied models of treatment demonstrated a probable level of savings assessed at 20-30% for the day treatment. The presented data obtained from the epidemiologic registry of Lower Silesian district showed a significant increase of hospital admissions of mostly non-psychotic patients--the most cost-saving group of mental dysfunctions while treated in a day hospital. As the cited articles concerned, studies conducted in other countries where the economic environment differs from the Polish one--there is a need of cost comparison between day hospital and inpatient treatment in the country.