A Study of Psychiatric Patients in North-East Scotland

Abstract

In Great Britain systematic population studies of treated mental illness have received little attention. In exception Carstairs and Brown (5) have carried out a retrospective psychiatric census of two small communities in South Wales, to include admissions to mental hospitals, attendances at out-patient clinics and all cases of suicide and attempted suicide over a five and a half year period. Martin et al. (18) have explored the incidence of neurosis on a new housing estate. More extensive programmes have been undertaken in the U.S.A., particularly that of Hollingshead and Redlich (15) in their detailed study of New Haven, Connecticut, and in Scandinavia as exemplified by Larsson and Sjögren's (16) study of a rural population in Sweden.