Hospitalized Psychiatric Morbidity in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

There seems little doubt from available statistics that the Republic of Ireland has the highest rate of hospitalized psychiatric morbidity in the world. There are no complete international figures available for this statistic but the World Health Organization published for the first time in 1961 returns for numbers of patients treated in hospital in 119 different countries (W.H.O. 1961). In many cases the returns were incomplete or unsatisfactory in one or more particulars. The ideal was to establish for each country the total number of patients treated during each one of the five years 1955–1959. The number treated was defined as “the patients present at the beginning of the year in the various public and private institutions specializing in psychiatry and in other institutions (general hospitals, etc.) plus admissions and readmissions during the year”. Unfortunately this ideal was achieved for only a minority of the 119 countries. The difficulties encountered in compiling the figures are set out in the publication itself.