Background: Very little is known about the utility of psychiatric day hospitals for elderly adults with mood disorders. The objectives of this study were to evaluate a long-standing day-hospital program and to explore whether demographic and non-demographic patient characteristics were associated with treatment outcomes.

Method: We used t-tests to compare retrospective admission and discharge data for 708 patients over a 16-year period, and multiple regression to examine predictors of improvement.

Results: Depressed patients showed statistically and clinically significant improvements on the Geriatric Depression Scale and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. The number and severity of depressive symptoms at admission were strongly related to treatment outcomes. After controlling for initial levels of depression, demographic characteristics did not predict improvement, and axis I and II diagnoses modestly and inconsistently predicted improvement.

Conclusions: A biopsychosocially-focused day-hospital treatment program was associated with improvements in depression in a large sample of elderly adults with mood disorders. Except for depression severity at admission, patient characteristics had very little impact on treatment outcomes, suggesting that day hospital programs are beneficial for a wide range of depressed elderly adults.