Anxiety: Hospital Admissions Highest In Women In Their Late 60s

Hospital admissions for anxiety increased with age and were highest among older women, new figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) show.

In the 12 months to November 2013 almost three out of ten anxiety admissions were women aged 60 and over (2,440 out of 8,720, or 28 per cent)³, with 65 to 69 the most common age group of female patient admissions (437, or 8 per cent of all female admissions). The most common age group for male patient admissions was 45 to 49 (279, or 8.5 per cent of all male admissions).

Today’s report also looks at hospital admissions for stress which were highest in girls aged 15 to 19 years (295) and men aged 40 to 44 years (343)and three quarters of patients were under 50 years old (74 per cent or 3,580 out of 4,840).

The pattern of admissions for anxiety or stress by age and gender was similar to the previous 12 months, however total admissions fell by over 2 per cent for anxiety (from 8,930 to 8,720) and almost 14 per cent for stress (from 5,610 to 4,840).

The overall trend in admissions by age showed that anxiety admissions increased with age and stress admissions amongst adults aged 45 years and above decreased with age.

The report published today focuses on a special topic which is part of a wider monthly publication of all NHS-commissioned provisional inpatient, outpatient and A&E activity in England. For all hospital admissions for anxiety or stress between December 2012 and November 2013:

• Women accounted for three in five anxiety admissions (62 per cent or 5,440) whereas more than half of stress admissions were men (55 per cent or 2,660) and this was similar to the previous 12 months (63 per cent and 55 per cent respectively).
• Almost nine out of ten anxiety cases (89 per cent or 7,750) and eight out of ten stress cases (78 per cent or 3,760) were emergency admissions.
• One in five anxiety cases were diagnosed with high blood pressure (19 per cent or 1,660) and one in four stress admissions had a personal history of self-harm (25 per cent or 1,230).
• Merseyside Area Team had the highest rate of admissions for anxiety and stress (29.7 and 18.4 per 100,000 of the population) and Thames Valley Area Team had the lowest rate of admissions for both conditions (7.2 and 2.0 per 100,000 respectively).⁴