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Resource consumption in psychiatric intensive care: The cost of aggression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Clive E. Hyde  and
Colina Harrower-Wilson
Clive E. Hyde
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Withington Hospital, Nell Lane, Manchester M20 8LR
Colina Harrower-Wilson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Withington Hospital, Nell Lane, Manchester M20 8LR
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Abstract

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The coils of operating a psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) were recorded for a six-month period. There were 110 admissions and 99 discharges. Mean length of stay was 12.3 days. Total costs were £346,516 over the study period, £283.56 per patient-day. Fixed costs comprised 93% of the total, inducing nursing staff ($169,447), overheads ($77,017), medical staff ($48,819), hotel costs (£24,160) and miscellaneous (£1,750). Variable costs included special nursing, (£19,405), treatment of major self-harm (£3,024), drugs (£1,707) and staff time to manage aggressive incidents (£1,188). Reduction of the incidence of aggression could result in valuable cost savings.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 19 , Issue 2: The Journal of Trends in Psychiatric Practice , February 1995 , pp. 73 - 76
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1995

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