A Study of Prediction and Outcome in a Mental Health Crisis Clinic
LOUIS A. GOTTSCHALK M.D.1,
RUTH A. FOX M.D.2, , and
DANIEL E. BATES 3
1 Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, College of Medicine, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, Calif. 92664 and Director, Psychiatric Services, Orange County Medical Center, Orange, Calif.
2 Clinical Instructor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, College of Medicine, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, Calif. 92664
3 Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, College of Medicine, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, Calif. 92664
Sixty-eight patients who came voluntarily to a crisis intervention clinic were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Those in the first group received immediate intervention therapy while those in the second were put on a waiting list. By the end of six weeks (and after minor changes in the makeup of the groups were taken into account) there was no significant difference in the psychiatric morbidity scores of the two groups; both had improved. The authors used a variety of pretreatment and posttreatment measures and found that the best predictor of a patient's condition at the end of six weeks was his pretreatment psychiatric morbidity score. The authors conclude that individuals vary in both their reactions to life crises and their therapeutic needs and that the central issue may not be the recovery itself, but the difficulty and pain with which it is achieved.
