General hospital-based studies may help towards improving the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Based on five representative studies in general hospital admissions, we will represent a comparative overview of suicidal events due to overdose and of the most common medical comorbidities in psychiatric disorders of ICD-10 classes F1–F4.

In secondary analysis one-way Anova and Tukey HSD test were used for comparisons of interval variables. Suicidal events and medical comorbidities with prevalences > 10% were compared between studies using the OR and the 95% CI.

Individuals with psychiatric disorders of ICD-10 classes F1–F4 were young (44.7–50.0 years), had an extended length of hospital stay at initial hospitalization (3.8–8.1 vs. 2.9–3.4 days), and significantly more likely suffered of suicidal events due to overdose than controls, contributing from 4.1% (OR = 4,1) to 11,6% (OR = 25.2) to general hospital admissions. Additionally, individuals with schizophrenia (SCH) significantly more likely suffered of type-2 diabetes mellitus (OR = 2.3, 95% CI 1.5–3.6) than individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety disorder (ANX), and alcohol dependence (AD), but equal likely as individuals with bipolar disorder (BD). Asthma and hypertension contributed significantly more to hospitalizations in the MDD and ANX samples compared to the SCH, BD, and AD samples. In the AD sample, alcoholic liver disease was more prevalent than in all other samples.

In psychiatric disorders, the frequency of suicidal events due to overdose in general hospitals is significantly determined by the diagnostic class. Additionally, different medical comorbidities contribute more than other medical comorbidities to general hospital admissions in various psychiatric disorders.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.