Abstract

Prevalence of delusional disorder among psychiatric inpatients: data from the German hospital register

Author(s): Michael Soyka, Christina Zingg, Gerd Baumgartner

Little is known about the prevalence of delusional disorder. An analysis of data from official German hospital statistics for the period between 2000 and 2006 indicate that 10% of psychiatric patients (cases) were admitted for psychotic disorders, predominantly schizophrenia, but only approximately 0.5% of patients met the diagnosis of delusional disorder. Therefore, patients with schizophrenia outnumbered patients with delusional disorder by approximately 20:1. It was also found that patients with delusional disorders were more likely to be female and older compared with schizophrenia.