Psychiatry Investig.  2012 Sep;9(3):199-208.

The Effects of Sociodemographic Factors on Psychiatric Diagnosis

• Choi MR
• Eun HJ
• Yoo TP
• Yun Y
• Wood C
• Kase M
• Park JI
• Yang JC

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Several studies have reported that ethnic differences influence psychiatric diagnoses. Some previous studies reported that African Americans and Hispanics are diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders more frequently than Caucasians, and that Caucasians are more likely to be diagnosed with affective disorders than other ethnic groups. We sought to identify associations between sociodemographic factors and psychiatric diagnosis.
METHODS
We retrospectively examined the medical records of all psychiatric inpatients (ages over 18 years) treated at Kern county mental hospital (n=2,051) between July 2003 and March 2007 for demographic, clinical information, and discharge diagnoses.
RESULTS
African American and Hispanic males were more frequently diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders than Caucasians, whereas Caucasian females were more frequently diagnosed with affective disorders than females in the other ethnic groups, suggesting that patient ethnicity and gender may influence clinical diagnoses. Demographic variables, that is, a lower education, failure of marriage, homelessness, and low quality insurance, were found to be significantly associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders after adjusting for clinical variables. And, the presence of a family psychiatric history, failure of marriage, not-homelessness, and quality insurance were found to be associated with a diagnosis of affective disorders.
CONCLUSION
Our results show that these demographic factors, including ethnicity, have effects on diagnoses in psychiatric inpatients. Furthermore, these variables may help prediction of psychiatric diagnoses.

Keyword

Ethnicity; Demographic variables; Clinical variables; Psychiatric diagnoses; Schizophrenia; Affective disorders

MeSH Terms

African Americans
Demography
Ethnic Groups
Female
Hispanic Americans
Homeless Persons
Hospitals, Psychiatric
Humans
Inpatients
Insurance
Male
Marriage
Medical Records
Mental Disorders
Mood Disorders
Retrospective Studies
Schizophrenia