Kimmel PL, Fwu CW, Abbott KC, et al. - Researchers investigated psychiatric illness and mortality in hospitalized patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Using inpatient claims from the first year of ESKD in adult and pediatric Medicare recipients who initiated treatment from 1996 to 2013, they identified at least one hospitalization in the first ESKD year in 72% of elderly adults, 66% of adults, and 64% of children. According to findings, pediatric and adult patients with ESKD are commonly hospitalized with psychiatric diagnoses. Hospitalizations with psychiatric diagnoses vs hospitalizations without psychiatric diagnoses were noted to be associated with subsequent higher mortality. The investigators noted that the burden of mental illness in this patient population is probably underestimated in the prevalence of hospitalizations with psychiatric diagnoses.