Based on the analysis and findings of this research, it can be concluded that hospitalization can have a significant impact on adult patients’ mental health. The results indicate that hospitalization was associated with increased levels of anxiety, depression, and stress among adult patients. This suggests that hospitalization can be a stressful and emotionally challenging experience for many patients. Additionally, the study found that the length of hospitalization was a significant factor in predicting the severity of mental health symptoms.  Patients who had   longer hospital stays tended to report higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stress during their stay period and even after discharge. These findings highlight the importance of providing psychological support and counseling services to patients during and after hospitalization. Therefore, the healthcare system should prioritize mental health care for hospitalized patients to help them cope with emotional and psychological stress of hospitalization. Future research in this area could explore the effectiveness of different interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction or cognitive-behavioral therapy in mitigating the negative mental health effects of hospitalization. Overall, the results of this study add to the growing body of research on the importance of mental health care in the hospital setting.

Hospitalization of adult patients often results in their functional decline affecting their capabilities and cognitive responses during their stay or even after discharge [1,2]. These negative impacts on patients’ mental well-being are not only brought about by the patient's acute or chronic condition but other psychological risk factors including depressive symptoms, bridge between the patients’ environment and the unfamiliar hospital setting, restricted mobility, health expenses, sense of isolation etc act as contributing factors in functional decline of the admitted or discharged patients [3,4,5].In addition, hospitalization adversely influences patients' capacities to adapt and change [6]. It apparently fuels patients' feelings and expands anxiety and depression among them [7]. So understanding these aspects might assist medical practitioners with supporting adult patients through their hospital stays and even after discharged could be assessed for their mental-well-being [8]. Accordingly, there is a need to develop an executive health management framework for psychological comorbidities based on the medical care rules as a part of the mental health policy [9,10]. Hospitalization may sternly disrupt sleep, which can worsen pain, mental status, and the psychiatric health of ill patients [11]. Inadequate sleep may lead to both psychological and physiological consequences on adult patients thus instigating anxiety, anger and stress among hospitalized patients [12,13].Like vital signs, the patient sleep quality reveals much about patients' overall well-being, and should be a routine part of medical evaluation [14].Subsequently, occurrence of psychophysiological capability should be examined in adult patients during their medical stay alongside adequacy of assessment outside the medical setting when they are discharged  in order to decide if there are patients for whom hospitalization isn't the only optimal treatment required but other medical interventions are needed to ensure wellbeing of their mental health [15,16] . Thus, the aim of this research is to evaluate the effect of hospitalization on adults’ patients’ mental health and also to identify the contributing factors that effects their behaviour and functionality.

Materials and Methods

This study is a cross sectional study included 100 adult patients aged ≥18.Data was collected from Jilani and Gilani hospital located in satellite town Quetta. The patients were selected at random and participation was voluntarily. All patients provided informed consent.

Inclusion criteria

•               Age group ≥18 and patients who could respond

•               Only those patients were included in the study who were hospitalized for about 7 days or more and were expected to stay more days based on doctors’ advice.

Exclusion criteria

•               Age group less than18 years of age

•               Patients which were about to discharge, or were hospitalized for less than 7 days.

Assessment of hospitalization effect on patients’ mental health was achieved with the help of a self-designed questionnaire. Statistical analysis of the data was achieved using Microsoft excel 2013

Results

Table 1 and Graph 1 depicts the respective age group of the patients who participated in this study.

Table 1: Age group of patients

Table 2 and Graph 2 depicts the gender of the adult patients who participated in this study.

Table 2: Gender distribution of the adult patients

Psychological factors affecting hospitalized patients were given in Table 3 and Graph 3.

Table 3: Psychological factors affecting hospitalized patients

Table 4: Socioeconomic factors affecting hospitalized patients

Socioeconomic factors affecting hospitalized patients were given in Table 4 and Graph 4. 

Table 5: Duration of hospitalization among adult patients

Duration of hospitalization of adult patients were given in Table 5 and Graph 5

The effect of hospitalization on adult’s mental health is a crucial aspect in this research as our study revealed that hospitalization could have long-lasting impacts on a patient’s mental wellbeing. Based on the obtained result it was concluded that the considered age group from 18 to above 50 years, individuals belonging to the age group 40 to 50 years were more affected by hospitalization followed by age group 29-39 years indicating higher prevalence of these particular age groups being hospitalized and then by age group 18-28 however patients of age ≥ 51 years were accounted for the lowest number of patients being hospitalized as shown in graph 1.The possible reason may because of progressive deteriorating age of these patients, the severity or complication of the disease is worsen with the passage of time and is now beyond medication or surgery [17,18].Hospital stay from time to time is required by these patients for short period in order to minimize the pain/symptoms of the diseases to reduce their suffering to some extent [19].

Another finding in our research indicated higher prevalence of hospitalization among patients with chronic health conditions plus the stress associated with family or work further worsen the symptoms of exsisting medical ailment thus resulting in a greater number of days being spent in hospital. As a consequence, hospitalized patients experience psychological issues including depression, anxiety, emotional disbalance, inadequacy etc [20,21] as depicted in graph 3. Moreover, lack of sleep, immobility and sense of isolation triggers the patient’s mental stability and has a negative impact on their mental health which requires intensive medical care [22]. 

Multiple factors may affect adult male/female patient’s mental health during or after hospitalization, the factors to some extents are same but may vary in accordance with gender including stigma, lack of support, challenges with communication, underlying health conditions and social norms [23,24]. However, it is important to note that mental health concerns can affect anyone regardless of gender, and seeking support is a vital step towards recovery [25]. Immobility can significantly impact patient’s mental state in hospital setting, leading to increased risk of  complications such as loss of muscle mass, psychological impacts, delayed readiness for discharge etc [26,27]. Thus, healthcare professionals must address these issues proactively by promoting early mobilization, encouraging activity, and providing appropriate interventions to improve patient’s overall health outcomes [28,29].

Our studies also revealed that socioeconomic factors can have a significant impact on adult patient’s mental health these factors include hospital costs, employment status of patients, hospital management, hospital staff performance etc [30,31] as shown in graph 4. In addition, it has been seen in numerous hospitalization scenarios that the hospital management tends to pressurize the patient for longer stay for financial profit or health insurances [32]. 

it’s important to note that the reason for prolonged hospitalization may vary depending on the patients’ health condition and the specific hospital in any case. Nevertheless, the length of hospital stay should be determined by the patients’ medical needs and not influenced solely by financial or insurance consideration [33]. Our research study also concluded that addressing social determinants of health, providing high- quality care, and implementing preventative measures can help reduce healthcare costs for patients from lower socioeconomic background [34] and therefore these patients would have one less socioeconomic factor to worry. 

A potential limitation of this study is that mental health assessments are often subjective in nature and can be influenced by a patient’s mood or other factors. Another limitation is that the study does not include patients with certain mental health conditions which may limit the generalizability of our findings. Hence, the findings of this research can lead to improvements in the hospital environment by supporting mental health care for hospitalized patients for instance, regular mental health assessments during hospitalization and the implementation of mental health interventions for patients who exhibited deteriorating mental health [35,36].Subsequently it is important to identify how hospitalization can affect patients mental well-being, and provide possible solution to improve mental health outcomes for hospitalized patients

Conclusion

Based on the analysis and findings of this research, it can be concluded that hospitalization can have a significant impact on adult mental   health. The results indicate that hospitalization was   associated with increased levels of anxiety, depression, and stress among adult patients. This suggests that hospitalization can be a stressful and emotionally challenging experience for many patients.