Readmission rate in a community psychiatric hospital

The present study examines the impact of psychotropic polypharmacy and medication non-adherence on hospital inpatient readmissions within the mental health population. Previous research attempted to determine whether or not there are factors associated with predicting readmissions and has found conflicting results. However, there has been consistent research that demonstrated the relationship between medication non adherence and hospital readmissions. This study expands the research by investigating psychotropic polypharmacy as a factor that coincides with medication non-adherence that leads to rapid readmissions. It was hypothesized that participants who were prescribed a higher quantity of psychotropic medications and scored lower on the Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS) would have a higher number of inpatient incidences within a 90 day time frame. The results of the Pearson and Spearman correlation failed to find a significant correlation between quantity of psychotropic medications and MARS scores. Additionally, the logistic regression indicated that neither quantity of psychotropic medications nor MARS scores significantly predicted hospital readmissions. However, the MARS score and number of hospital incidences was in the hypothesized direction. These results may have been impacted by the low sample size and the method used to measure medication adherence. A cohort matched design with an equal amount of participants in the readmission and non readmission group may have been beneficial for this study to use. Overall, this study has found that polypharmacy is prevalent in the psychiatric community and that the use of 2-3 psychotropic medications may be beneficial in the treatment and management of mental illness