Study of behavioral factors associated with psychiatric rehospitalization

Archival data from daily logs maintained at a private proprietary home were tracked from four to 29 weeks prior to psychiatric rehospitalization for ten deinstitutionalized adult females and ten nonhospitalized controls. Three raters coded behavioral incidents into ten categories. The rehospitalized women had significantly more incidents than did the controls, including more affective disturbances (depression, anxiety, anger, and interpersonal concerns) and more attempts to secure psychiatric rehospitalization. The rehospitalized groups also exhibited symptomatic behavior for a greater number of weeks than did the control group, suggesting that the symptom pattern was probably detectable long before rehospitalization was necessary. Peaks in incidence frequency often occurred several weeks prior to rehospitalization.