Public perception of discharged psychiatric patients: a community survey

The trend in psychiatric care in the National Health Service in Britain is to move patients into the community. However, few attempts have been made to identify public opinions about such moves. This paper describes public beliefs of mental illness and their attitudes towards patients moved from two large institutions into their neighbourhood. Residents local to a community mental health facility were interviewed before and six months after opening the facility. The results shows that public attitudes remain negative. It seems that deinstitutionalisation has little impact on public attitudes. No distinction could be drawn between the study and control groups.