Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1472-1476
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Outcome of irregularly discharged psychiatric patients
ID Glick, DL Braff, G Johnson and JA Showstack
Clinicians' attitudes about the posthospitalization outcome of patients who
are irregularly discharged from the hospital (i.e., against medical advice
or AWOL) have been pessimistic, but unsystematic follow-up data of such
patients compared with regularly discharged patients suggest that outcomes
for the two groups are similar. Because of this discrepancy, the authors
used data from a controlled, systematic study of a large sample of
voluntary inpatients that measured global outcome over 2 years. Their
findings suggest that 1 year and 2 years after admission, most patients who
were irregularly discharged had outcomes similar to those of patients with
regular discharges. There was, however, a subgroup of irregularly
discharged patients who had worse outcomes.
