[Evaluation of the 11-year existence of an ambulatory residential group]

The authors evaluated in a retrospective study the sociodemographic and sickness course specific data of 48 patients who had been discharged from inpatient psychiatric treatment to an outpatient residential community. Whereas in 50% of the patients after an average time in the community of 1 1/2 years it is usually possible for them to move into a home of their own, provided their mental condition has continued to stabilise, the other half of the patients have to be readmitted to the psychiatric hospital as inpatients, thus breaking off their ties to the residential community. Relevant criteria of prognosis are, in consideration of the medium-term rehabilitation success in the residential community, the duration and number of times of previous psychiatric hospitalisations and the age of the patient when the disease became manifest for the first time. No prognosis of rehabilitation success is possible on the basis of duration of stay in the residential community, previous professional activity, age and psychiatric diagnosis (endogenous psychoses versus personality disturbances and other syndromes).