Board-and-care home wanderers

At six-month follow-up, 32 of 101 psychiatric patients in a board-and-care home had moved on. In this sense a considerable proportion of this population is not a static group. A relationship was found between moving on and having resided in the board-and-care home 12 months or less, being younger than 30 years of age, having goals to change something in one's life, and hospitalization during the preceding year. Repeated attempts at independent living appeared to stem from a search for autonomy and a sense of mastery, and resistance to the pull of dependency. Moving on, for some, seemed to be an attempt at a geographical solution to internal problems. Ambivalence and the need of both residents and families for respite appeared to be reflected in moves back and forth from living with each other.