When schizophrenia comes marching home

Abstract

Deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill has only recently been recognized as a phenomenon which may not be in the best interests of the patients involved. The reasons for this include the lack of adequate community-based resources for domiciliary, treatment, and rehabilitative services, plus the response of society to deviant behavior. However, the most fundamental problem is likely to be the severity of the illnesses with which we are concerned, so that the solution cannot be as simple as the sending "home" of the long-term patients. Prevention of institutionalization is seen as a more feasible goal than its cure. This requires a comprehensive program incorporating, among other things, a recognition of the necessary role of the mental hospital, and the need to improve the quality of care provided therein.