Patient behavior in hospitals: Helplessness, reactance, or both?

Abstract

Forty-eight inpatients hospitalized for 1, 3, or 9 weeks and 24 outpatients were tested on cognitive tasks: poor performance and depressive symptoms increased with length of hospitalization, even as illness resolved. Further, increased hospitalization made patients more susceptible to the debilitating effect of uncontrollable events. Taken together, these results imply that the passive, compliant, and inanimate behavior of the "good patient" may be the result of learned helplessness engendered by hospitalization.