Admissions to psychiatric units in North Wales

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Admissions to psychiatric units in North Wales: associations with geographical area and levels of multiple deprivation

• IRAS ID

  218773

• Contact name

  Leah Jones

• Contact email

  psp4e9@bangor.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Bangor University

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 9 months, 17 days

• Research summary

  Inpatient psychiatric care is an integral part of the mental health care system in the UK, however, there is a lack of literature reporting on who accesses the service, what factors contribute towards being admitted to a psychiatric unit, and subsequent length of stay. US-based studies have identified a number of characteristics at the individual level and neighbourhood-level which are associated with admissions to psychiatric wards, with the research in the UK, and Wales in particular, being less well developed.

  Routinely collected information recorded by the Health Board during admission to the three psychiatric units in North Wales will be accessed. The study will access anonymous patient data from the years 2000-2016. The researchers will not access patients’ names or dates of birth. Demographic information will be accessed (gender, age, marital status, religion, ethnicity, language), as well as information regarding diagnosis, length of stay at the unit, number of previous admissions, and status of admission (i.e. voluntary or involuntary).
  A second data set will also be accessed for the study, which is openly available to the public, via the Welsh Government. Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) is an official measure of deprivation for small areas in Wales. The WIMD provides a measures of overall deprivation, as well as multiple subcategories of deprivation including income, employment, health, education, access to services, community safety, physical environment, and housing. The current study will assign patients’ the level of deprivation for their area, as determined during a recent census.

  The database-analysis study will be the first of its kind to describe the demographic make-up of people admitted to psychiatric units in Wales. It will also be the first study to investigate associations between area-level deprivation and admissions to psychiatric units in Wales. The study will run for approximately ten months.

• REC name

  Wales REC 4

• REC reference

  16/WA/0393

• Date of REC Opinion

  13 Dec 2016

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion