Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) — Declining stocks worry people sick, if hospital records are any guide.

A one-day drop in equities of around 1.5 percent is followed by about a 0.26 percent increase in hospital admissions on average over the next two days, according to a March 2013 study by Joseph Engelberg and Christopher Parsons, associate professors of finance at the University of California at San Diego. The impact on psychological conditions such as anxiety or panic attacks is even stronger and more immediate, with admissions jumping twice that much in one day.

"It's a very straightforward result," Engelberg said yesterday at the American Economic Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, where he presented the findings. The results were based on almost three decades of daily admission data for California hospitals. Hospitalizations rise on days when shares fall, and "people are hospitalized disproportionately for mental conditions."