[Social class and mental disorders (an empirical study in Zurich canton)]

The correlation of social class and diagnosis, therapy, mode of admission, frequency of hospitalization was tested in a population of 2103 inpatients of the two governmental and of two private mental hospitals of the Canton Zurich. The results fit to the correlations expected from the literature. The therapeutic procedures as far as reported in the case histories are mainly determined by the hospital type, not so clearly by the subject's social class. High educational status and psychotherapy are correlated. The correlation between social class and therapy is resulting of the class specific admission to one of the two hospital types. There was no sign that within one hospital patients of lower social class were placed at a disadvantage in regard to therapeutic procedures.