Predicting outcome of psychiatric hospitalization: a comparison of attitudinal and psychopathological measures

Demonstrated that a generalized measure of locus of control (the Rotter I-E Scale) is not as effective in predicting outcome of hospitalization as a direct assessment of psychiatric patients' (N = 103) willingness to admit to having problems. The addition of diagnostic classification to patients' acknowledgment of problems did not improve the discriminative capacity of the latter with regard to length of hospitalization or readmission within 1 year. Patients' acceptance of responsibility for their problems was not related significantly to length of stay or readmission, except in the presence of severe pathology (as indicated by diagnostic classification). Implications for therapeutic strategies based on these findings were presented.