A Statistical Study of Factors Influencing Discharge from Psychiatric Hospitals

Abstract

One of the problems in psychiatric epidemiology is the use of hospital admissions for the study of true morbidity. Clearly this depends upon whether hospitalized cases can be regarded as a representative sample, in other words if admission to hospital varies from one social group to another, from one region to another, etc. Various authors have shown that the duration of hospital stay varies with social status, with marital condition, etc., and such variations in the chances of being discharged suggest similar variations in the probability of being admitted.