A Study on prevelance and factors associated with high rates of readmissions of the mentally ill adults at Chainama Hills Hospital in Lusaka

Abstract

The problem of readmissions of the mentally ill adults is widespread and it has continued over many years. It occurs in the people of all racial background and social economic groups.Chainama Hills Hospital in Zambia has not been spared from this phenomenon. Readmission of the mentally ill adults has been associated with adverse outcomes on the clients, their families and the readmitting institution. Unfortunately very little in terms of research has been done in Zambia on this topic. This has necessitated this study to be conducted. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with readmissions of the mentally ill adults at Chainama Hills Hospital in Lusaka Zambia. A cross Sectional design study was conducted. Qualitative and Quantitative methods were used to collect date. Two hundred and thirty (230) and 0ne hundred and fifty (150) of relatives to patients(care givers) and patients respectively who were readmitted and who came for review to Chainama Hills Hospital were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The participants were selected consecutively as they came for readmission and review. To complement data from the survey, two focus group discussions (comprising 8 participants for group 1 and 10 participants for group 2) was conducted. The sample provided 95% power of confidence and p- value of 0.05.Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 17.0. The prevalence was established to be 19.72%.The study finding revealed that beer intake and bad socio-cultural practices were significantly associated with readmission of the mentally ill adults. The study further found that factors such as sex of being male, age of being more than 35years , education, employment, being single, distance of12km and more from nearest mental health facility, taking more than 2hours to reach the nearest mental health facility, diagnosis of schizophrenia, smoking, type of substance smoked, not taking drugs according to prescribed frequency and overall treatment compliance showed no association with readmission of the mentally ill adults after multivariate analysis was done. However in other similar studies these same factors were found to be statistically significance. The study findings accepts the alternative hypothesis which states that there is a relationship between demographic characteristics, lack of compliance to treatment and socio-cultural mpractices and high rates of readmissions of the mentally ill adults at Chainama Hills Hospital in Lusaka. In conclusion beer drinking and bad socio-cultural practices were associated with high rates of readmission of the mentally ill adults at Chainama Hills Hospital.It was recommended that mass education of the communities be embarked on to discourage bad social practices by communities and the patients so as to reduce relapses and rehospitalisation.