Contributing Factors to Psychiatric Readmissions

Psychiatric readmissions have been on the uprise since 2010, especially in patients with chronic mental illness and have experienced two or more previous admissions in the past. There are many factors that contribute to readmissions such as length of hospital stay, inadequate discharge plan and lack of or insufficient services following discharge. This research project will examine the factors contributing to readmission of psychiatric patients and analyze methods to reduce readmissions such as how discharge teaching can be improved. An informational poster will be developed then presented to the staff on APTU at Baystate where I am currently completing my capstone hours for nursing. A literature review was conducted of scholarly, peer reviewed articles pertaining to rate of psychiatric readmissions, factors contributing to these readmissions and evidence-based practice changes to begin the discussion of how to reduce these psychiatric readmissions. Evidence has shown that providing adequate time in an inpatient psychiatric treatment unit as well as using teach back for patients prior to discharge to ensure they are aware of medications and scheduled appointments has reduced readmissions. The evidence also found that for patients with a caregiver, including the caregiver in discharge teaching as well as ensuring the patient has access to transportation to appointments and access to medications has reduced the rate of readmissions in psychiatric patients.