Admission pattern and diagnostic stability of patients with functional psychoses in Denmark during a two-year...

This register-based study shows that the incidence of first-admitted patients to psychiatric hospital who were diagnosed as having functional psychoses was 55 per 100,000 inhabitants in Denmark in 1984. During a two-year observation period, half of the patients were readmitted and two-fifths had their diagnosis changed. Young and schizophrenic patients were especially liable to readmission. Reactive psychosis and paranoia were the most unstable diagnostic concepts, as half of the patients were classified differently at the latest readmission compared to the first admission. Schizophrenic patients are still to a great extent treated as inpatients. Comparisons between two catchment areas are made. It is necessary to be very careful when one is using patients' first diagnosis from the present nosologic classification for prediction of clinical and diagnostic course. Studies based on phenomenology and on diagnoses made using operational criteria are badly needed.