Unemployment and the rate of psychoactive-substance-related psychiatric hospital admission in regional Queensland: An observational, longitudinal study

Objectives: To examine the relationship between a regional economic downturn (indicated by the rise of population unemployment rate) and the rate of psychoactive-substance-induced psychiatric hospital admissions in the population in a rural/regional setting. Methods: Hospital admission records from January 2013 to December 2016 were reviewed retrospectively. All patients with admissions to the Mackay inpatient psychiatric unit with diagnosis of mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use were recorded using (ICD-10) F10-F19 codes. The relationship between the regional unemployment rate and the hospital admission rate was analysed using linear regression analysis. Results: A statistically significant regression was found (F(1,46) = 39.46, p < 0.0001), R² = 0.46). The predicted number of admissions per 100,000 population in a month was observed to increase on average by 3.13 per month (95% CI = 2.12–4.13, p < 0.0001) for each percentage increase in the regional unemployment rate. Conclusions: There was a statistically significant association between the population unemployment rate and the rate of substance induced psychiatric hospital admissions. Implications for regional Australian service provision and unmet needs were discussed. Further research is required to confirm this observation.