LONG-TERM PROGNOSIS IN MENTAL ILLNESS
A Thirty-Year Follow-Up of 141 Mental Patients
WILLIAM L. HOLT JR. M. D.1, and
WINIFRED M. HOLT A. B.1
1 The Boston Psychopathic Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
All of the 141 patients admitted in 1921 to Westborough State Hospital soon after study at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital were investigated 30 years later. Only 7% of the group could not be traced.
The study included age, diagnoses, time spent in hospital, condition on discharge, community adjustment, age at death, and cause of death.
In this cross-section sample, 26% of all admissions traced were recovered before death or when seen after 30 years. It was noteworthy that the dementia præcox patients, constituting 42% of the group, accounted for 39% of the surviving patients in the community and 35% of all recovered patients. Where no significant diagnostic disagreement occurred throughout successive hospitalizations, only 13% of dementia præcox patients were recovered. Where the last hospital diagnosis was accepted as valid, 23% of dementia præcox patients were recovered at death or when seen after 30 years and an additional 6% were much improved.
