[Long-term and short-term patients in a psychiatric university-polyclinic: a comparison of their social indicators...

Although a remarkable knowledge about socioeconomic variables of psychiatric outpatients has been gathered until now little is known how their social conditions influence their duration of psychiatric service utilization. In this paper two groups of clients of the University Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic of Basle with different durations of treatment were compared by using the social indicators of the AMDP-System: the first group of outpatients has been in treatment for less than one year (short term patients, KZP), the second has been in treatment for more than five years (long term patients, LZP). Long term patients are more often than short term patients unmarried. They live more often in family fragments, are/were less often in professional leading positions and are less often integrated in the labour-market. Before as well as after their first contact to the University Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic long term patients were more often hospitalized in psychiatric clinics. Social sex differences are elaborated for both groups. The heavier institutional dependence of the second group is discussed in the light of their greater social disintegration. The importance of the social indicators as determinators for the institutional selection is stressed.