WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Oyedele Akinjola*, Terkura M. Agbir, Aladi Nneka Edeh, Olorunninyo Oluwasesan Omidiji, Festus Omo Ighagbon and Suwa Goar

ABSTRACT

The burden of psychiatric disorders is so enormous and affects the patients, families and the larger society. The effect can only be lessened if the patients receive adequate treatment and comply with the treatment. Reasons why persons living with mental illness suffer include; inadequate staffing of hospitals, stigma, poverty and belief in supernatural causation of mental illness. All of these can prevent patients from presenting to the hospital. Studies of similar nature are scarce in Benue state. This study aimed to determine the pattern of presentation of new cases at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital. It is a retrospective study which collected data from the hospital register of all 241 patients presenting for the first time at the outpatient clinic of the Psychiatry unit of the hospital, over a one-year period. The patients’ ages range between 10-75 years. 70.2% are 40 years of age and below, there were more females (51.9%) than males (48.1%) and over three-quarter (78.8%) were employed. Schizophrenia (24.5%), Depression (21.2%) and Organic mental disorders (14.1%) accounted for the highest amount of diagnosis in those orders. There are two surges in the number of patient presentation, with 34.8% of patients presenting between March and April and 27.4% presenting between August and September. Schizophrenia and depression are the most common diagnosis among patients presenting at the outpatient clinic among other diagnosis. Also, the presentation of new cases follows a seasonal pattern.

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