Admitting personal problems and outcomes in hospitalized psychiatric patients

Willingness to admit that one has a serious emotional problem is part of a complex of attitudes that have a significant effect on behavioral outcomes of hospitalized psychiatric patients. Specifically, patients who admitted emotional problems were more likely to want to change than non-admitters. Further, admitters stayed in the hospitals a significantly shorter time and were less likely to return to the hospital within a year than patients not willing to admit problems. Other similar findings indicated that admitting problems and desire to change were better predictors of patients' outcome than staff physicians' opinions.