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The long-stay psychiatric patient as consumer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

I. C. T. Hughes
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
B. M. McLackland
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
G. S. Oles
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
I. G. Pryce
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
R. D. P. Griffiths
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
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“Quality of life” (QOL) appears intrinsically important but difficult to measure. As a mental health professional, one might wish to know whether patients moving from the security of hospital to “the community” improve their QOL, or to evaluate their QOL against that of other groups in society. Simply looking at symptom change or economic cost-benefit misses much of the point behind innovations in psychiatric services. From previous QOL assessments (e.g. Lehman, 1983) one would focus upon positive aspects such as living situation, personal relationships, and general health and on negative aspects such as lack of money or being a victim of crime. Literature from the 1950s and 60s attests to the adverse effects of institutional care but more recently writers such as Kathleen Jones (Jones et al, 1986) have drawn attention to the benefits of living in such an environment. Also, various well-publicised “scandals” have suggested the pitfalls of inadequately thought-out discharge into the community.

Type
Original articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991

References

Abrahamson, D., Swatton, J. & Wills, W. (1989) Do long-stay psychiatric patients want to leave hospital? Health Trends, 21, 1719.Google Scholar
Dayson, D. (1990) Clinical and social outcomes after one year in the community. Paper presented at TAPS fifth annual conference.Google Scholar
Jones, K., Robinson, M. & Golightly, M. (1986) Long-term psychiatric patients in the community. British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 537540.Google Scholar
Lehman, A. S. (1983) The well-being of chronic mental patients: assessing their quality of life. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 369373.Google Scholar
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