Service Use by Elderly Patients After Psychiatric Hospitalization

The extent and source of services used by older adults discharged to a community setting after a psychiatric hospitalization were examined in a prospective follow-up study. Patients were asked about service use in structured telephone interviews one month after hospital discharge. Subjects had comorbid medical conditions and high levels of functional impairment. Service use was low, highly skewed, and spread across three sectors of care—mental health specialty care (38 percent of the services), general medical care (35 percent), and social services and formal aging services (27 percent). Most service episodes were related to mental disorder.