Demographic characteristics of the patient population in a Veterans Administration day hospital

In order to better serve the clients in a Veterans Administration day-hospital program, the veterans' social and demographic characteristics were tabulated and correlations were calculated to investigate the existent of any interrelationships among the variables. The typical patient was in his mid-thirties; had a history of familial mental illness; had been hospitalized eight times previously, with the first hospitalization in his late twenties; had been unemployed for the previous 4 years; had completed at least 1 year of college; and had been married at some point in time, if not at the time of admission. One particularly interesting result was that acting-out behavior and the presence of substance abuse were related less to diagnosis (unless the diagnosis was itself substance abuse) and more to social class.