Modelling the length of stay of psychiatric patients at adamawa state specialist hospital yola, nigeria

Applications of queuing theory enhance congestion assessment of in-patient facilities in hospitals and can improve significantly on the impact of quality healthcare as well as on patient satisfaction. This study examined the congestion situations which include the length of stay (LOS) for admissions and discharges of male and female in-patients at Psychiatric Unit of Specialist Hospital (PUSH), Yola. Data were obtained from a secondary source and analyzed with Easy Fit software, IBM-SPSS, TORA and MS-Excel. The M/M/1/N queuing model was adopted, because the bed space capacity is 17 for the male patients and 12 beds for female patients in the wards. The LOS analysis using Poisson regression revealed that the male patients are at a higher risk of LOS compared to the female patients. The results further show that, patients with drug-induced psychosis are at higher risk of LOS compared to others. The Queuing analysis indicates that the average number of male and female patients on admission including those about to be discharge is approximately 17 and 12 patients per week respectively, and average time male and female patients in the system on admission including discharged time is approximately 11 and 8 days respectively, which shows that bed facility in the hospital in male and female wards were always over stretched, and their traffic intensity on admission and discharge rates is 2 patient per week respectively, implying that 2 male and female patients are being turn away every week, due to limited number of beds available for in-patients. The management of PUSH Yola should provide more beds facilities for psychiatric patients so as to avoid congestion of in-patients, and also to improve the quality of service.