Social role adequacy and duration of psychiatric hospitalization: a study of some relationships as measured by Bales small group interaction concepts

The length of time a given psychiatric patient may spend in a mental hospital is complex and depends upon many social and personal factors. With custodial care patients accumulating in mental hospitals at the rate of sixteen thousand per year throughout the United States, considerable attention is now being given this problem (5). This thesis will deal with some aspects of this problem as concerned with the neuroses and functional psychoses. These make up about 40 per cent of first admissions, (with another 40 per cent represented by diseases associated with the aged), over 25 per cent having been diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to one of the most careful and comprehensive studies (30).