Social activities in elderly patients with severe mental illness. Lessons from a mental hospital in Sweden

Mental hospitals offer their patients many different kinds of social activities/facilities. One-hundred-and-twenty-seven patients in the long-term care unit at a mental hospital were included in the study. They were divided into three subgroups on the basis of diagnosis: dementia disorder (n = 65), chronic psychotic disorder (n = 38), and chronic non-psychotic disorder (n = 24). An inventory was made of all possible activities/facilities offered to the patients by the mental hospital, with the objective of ascertaining whether participation in social activities/facilities discriminated between the three diagnostic groups. Sixteen activities/facilities were obtained from an inventory by nurses. Stepwise discriminant analysis identified length of stay in hospital, age and the social activities/facilities that separated the three diagnostic groups. The discriminant function analysis showed that participation in social activities, together with length of stay and age, discriminated very well between the demented and the chronic psychotic groups. The discriminant analysis also indicated that patients with chronic psychotic. disorder were distinguishable by their frequent participation in social activities, long stay in hospital, and low age. The results obtained can be used when the social activities/facilities in a community care setting are being planned for the various diagnostic groups.