Am J Psychiatry 1975; 132:385-390
Copyright © 1975 by American Psychiatric Association
Short versus long hospitalization: a prospective controlled study. II. Results for schizophrenic inpatients
ID Glick, WA Hargreaves, M Raskin and SJ Kutner
The authors compared treatment results for 141 schizophrenic patients
randomly assigned to short-term or long-term hospitalization. The patients
received intensive treatment and were on partially fixed drug dosage
schedules. Test results indicated that the short-term group was functioning
better at four weeks. However, at discharge (21 to 28 days for short-term
patients; 90 to 120 days for long-term) the long-term group showed
significantly better functioning. There were no significant differences
between the groups on symptomatology at discharge. The authors discuss the
implications of these findings for decisions regarding length and type of
hospitalization for schizophrenic patients.
