Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Readmission Rates: A 10-Year Single-Center Retrospective Cohort Study at an Acute Psychiatric Facility in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Background Neuropsychiatric disorders, with their complexities, manifest with a blend of neurological and psychiatric symptoms that pose significant challenges within classification systems and their overall management. These intricate, perplexing disorders appear to contribute to increased readmission rates, illustrating the need for concrete evidence to facilitate the urgent and longstanding requisite for personalized care and research development within an interdisciplinary care framework. Methodology This retrospective cohort study analyzed a decade's worth of data from a 250-bed acute inpatient care facility in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The dataset included a total of 334 patients: 75 with neuropsychiatric disorders and 259 with solely primary psychiatric disorders. Results As predicted, high readmission rates were observed in the neuropsychiatric disorder cohort in comparison to the primary psychiatric disorder cohort. Annual readmission rates averaged 0.37 for neuropsychiatric versus 0.16 for psychiatric cases alone. Furthermore, emerging trends of demographic disparities were identified, where the neuropsychiatric cohort demonstrated a high readmission frequency across various age, gender, and ethnic groups. Conclusion The readmission rates of neuropsychiatric disorders were substantially higher in the acute psychiatric care facility in Abu Dhabi, compared to primary psychiatric disorders. The results of this study in the acute, yet tertiary, inpatient psychiatric facility in Abu Dhabi highlight an urgent necessity for both specialized multidisciplinary care strategies in this vulnerable population and a specific focus on this population’s perpetuating unmet needs to improve their overall prognosis and decrease hospital readmission rates.