[Outpatient's profile assisted by the psychiatry residents of the "PROF. DR. R. ROSSI" General Hospital, La Plata, Argentina].

OBJECTIVE: To define the profile and the treatments evolution of the outpatients assisted by the psychiatry residents of the Rossi Hospital in La Plata.

METHODS: It was analyzed the period between 2005 and 2010 (six years). The variables selected included gender, age, diagnosis (according to ICD 10), duration and evolution of treatment.

RESULTS: From the total number of patients (n=341), 58,7% were women (n= 200) and 41,3% men (n= 141). The most frequent diagnoses were: anxiety disorders (13,6%), depressive disorders (12,8%), schizophrenia (12,2%), other non-affective psychoses (9%) and mental retardation (8,4%). The patients who dropped out represented the 26,1%, the ones who continued the 25,2% and the percentage of discharged was 17.

DISCUSSION: The high frequency of psychoses (schizophrenia and other non-affective psychoses) reminds us the importance of the public hospital in the assistance of severe and chronic pathologies. There are similarities and differences with other publications. However, the population studied has distinctive characteristics which hamper comparisons among them, as our patients are already in psychiatric treatment, when other investigations are based on general population or first consultation on Mental Health Services.