Outcome of First Hospitalization of Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

SCHIZOPHRENIA is the diagnosis made on 23 percent of all first admissions to public prolonged-care hospitals for mental disease in the United States (1). A previous report presented the characteristics of 6,072 patients so diagnosed on first admission to the Ohio State public mental hospitals during the period January 1, 1948, through June 30, 1952 (2). Of these 6,072 schizophrenia patients, 5,781, or 95.2 percent, were in the age group 15-54. The study concentrated on these ages dichotomized thus: 15-34 and 35-54. This report presents the probability of complete and formal discharge of these patients during the 5 years following admission by such factors as age, sex, race, residence, marital status, education, occupation, and religious affiliation. Deaths during the 5-year followup period were few, numbering 91, or 1.6 percent, of the 5,781 patients in the study group. Therefore, those not discharged could be considered as on the books of the hospital although not necessarily in hospital residence, since many may be on extramural sta.tus. The analysis utilized the modified life-table technique (3, 4). Interstate comparisons are omitted because they may be invalid unless more is known about variations in practice within mental hospitals of the different States and differences in the way these hospitals are used by the communities they serve (5).