Psychiatric patients who remain in long stay hospitals

Abstract

Despite the move towards care in the community there remain in our psychiatric hospitals long stay patients who have yet to be found places in the community. Below is reported a study in which the impact of shrinking psychiatric hospitals upon these long stay patients was assessed. In terms of psychiatric state and quality of life these patients have declined over the two years since large scale hospital discharge programmes began. Furthermore, the hospital 'stayers' are showing increasingly pessimistic attitudes towards their eventual life in the community. This can only add to the difficulty with which these patients will eventually be integrated into the community.