[7-year-follow-up investigations of the geriatric psychiatric inpatient service in a separated care at a state hospital (obligatory service) and an integrated care at a university hospital in Goettingen, Germany -- I. Type of patients].

Objective: 7 years after our first investigation we were interested in the stability versus (trends of) change in geriatric psychiatric inpatients while the structure of services was mainly unchanged.

Method: We performed standardised chart reviews of randomly selected groups of geriatric psychiatric inpatients who had been treated in 1998 and 1999 in the Psychiatric University Hospital (PUK; n = 104) or the Psychiatric State Hospital (LKH; n = 100), which together treat all psychiatric inpatients in the region. With regard to age, the PUK provides integrated and the LKH separated care.

Results: Mean patients' age decreased. Compulsory admissions according to state laws decreased significantly. Specialist treatment before admission decreased. Premedication showed a dramatic decrease of antidementia drug treatment and a nearly unchanged high rate of prescriptions of antipsychotics and benzodiazepines.

Conclusion: With a lower age and lower rate of specialist treatment we could not find signs of a better outpatient care preceding hospital admission during follow-up.