Social indicators and the prediction of psychiatric admission in different diagnostic groups

Background Recent findings indicate that the established association between social indicators of deprivation and psychiatric admission rates may not hold across ail diagnoses. Method Admission rates in individuals aged 16-64 years for 71 electoral wards in North Staffordshire were calculated for six diagnostic groups using data from the Korner Episode System for 1987-1993. These were correlated with selected individual census variables, Townsend and Jarman indices. The ability of regression models to predict admission rates was tested. Results The strongest correlations were found for total admissions (r 0.44-0.79). Strong correlations were found for neurotic disorders/depression (r 0.29-0.62), schizophrenia (r 0.24-0.59), all non-psychotic disorders combined (r 0.41-0.71) and all psychotic disorders combined (r 0.33-0.67). Predicted admission rates for total admissions, psychotic and non-psychotic admissions using regression models showed strong positive correlations with observed admission rates. Conclusions The strong correlations between social indicators of deprivation and total psychotic admission rates are consistent with the results of previous studies. The strong associations between social indicators and admissions for nonpsychotic disorders is contrary to previous findings and may be partly explained by the relatively high admission rates for neurotic disorders.