Predicting length of hospital stay of psychiatric patients.

Data from 105 psychiatric patients in the adolescent, young adult, and older adult age ranges and in various diagnosis-related groups confirmed the hypothesis that patients' length of stay in a hospital for a psychiatric disorder is increased by greater amounts of stress and decreased by higher levels of functioning. The authors propose a formula, length of stay = function of axis IV score/axis V score, to test this relationship. The findings point to a potentially useful approach for making decisions on length of stay, i.e., the use of more reliable scales than the global rating scale of axis V in DSM-III.