Influencing factors of elderly hospitalized psychiatric patients complicated with physical disease: a cross-sectional study of 332 patients in Guangzhou China.

Objective: To investigate the influencing factors of the number of physical diseases in elderly hospitalized psychiatric patients.

Methods: A total of 332 hospitalized elderly patients with mental illness were enrolled in this study. The number of combined physical diseases was divided into three groups, which were 0, 1 ~ 2, and ≥ 3. Data collected included sociodemographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, delirium status, social support, medication adherence, social functioning, ability to perform daily living, and swallowing function.

Results: The sample included 64.2% of female patients, mainly concentrated in 60 ~ 69 years old (48.2%). The length of hospital stay of patients was mainly 15 ~ 30 days (55.7%), and the course of disease was mainly 2 ~ 10 years (38.3%). After adjusting for confounding factors such as gender, poor lifestyle habits, course of disease, length of hospital stay, psychiatric symptoms, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, delirium, social functioning, social support, and drug therapy compliance, we found that the number of physical disorders in elderly patients with mental illness was related to age, ability of daily living, and swallowing function. The increase of age, the decrease of the ability of daily living, and poor swallowing function contribute to a higher number of comorbid medical disorders in elderly patients with mental illness (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: According to the results, age, ability of daily living and swallowing function were the main influencing factors in the number of complicated physical diseases in elderly patients with mental illness. Future research should focus on improving the daily living ability and swallowing function of elderly patients with mental illness, in order to reduce the prevalence of other physical diseases in elderly patients with mental illness.