First admission young adult patients to a state hospital: relative risk for rapid readmission.

High readmission rates by young adult patients to state hospitals represents a major service utilization problem for the public mental health system. By identifying those patients who have an increase risk for rapid readmission, effective community-based services could be developed to help reduce utilization of costly hospital services. A nonconcurrent prospective study of 210 first admission young adult patients admitted to a state hospital was conducted to ascertain the incidence of readmission within 180 days of discharge from the index admission (rapid readmission), and to establish relative risk for rapid readmission based on demographic, hospital utilization, and diagnostic variables. The cohort was partitioned into two subgroups: patients with no prior hospitalization, (NPH; N = 119), and patients with prior hospitalization, (PH; N = 91). Group comparisons revealed NPH patients had a lower readmission rate, had shorter hospital lengths of stay, and had a higher proportion on patients with personality or adjustment disorders. The relative risk for rapid readmission in the NPH patient group was greatest for nonwhite female patients (3.30) and for patients who had hospital length of stays between 4-15 days (1.76). In the PH patient group, the relative risk for rapid readmission was greatest for those patients with hospital length of stay less than 15 days (2.15). In both groups, patients with major mental illness were more likely to get readmitted. An association between hospital occupancy rate, the time of discharge from the index admission and readmission to the hospital, hospital length of stay, sex, race, or diagnostic category was not found.