[Rehabilitation of pension--which course do psychiatric patients follow after their first inpatient treatment in a psychiatric hospital? Results of a prospective longitudinal study]

Abstract

Placing persons having a mental illness in the open labour market has in recent years become increasingly difficult. The question therefore arises whether an attempt should be made to improve occupational access through rehabilitative measures, or whether pensioning would not be the more appropriate action. In the framework of a prospective 5-year catamnestic study of first-admission psychiatric patients, the course taken by them was investigated, as well as the factors that had been relevant in the decision to pension the patients, or to provide rehabilitative services. It was found that pensioning and rehabilitative measures differ in no essential degree as to their shares, and that both types of approach had occurred in only very few cases. Disease-specific factors (psychopathological symptoms, readmission) are suggested to be involved concerning the route taken. Pensioning on the one hand, and rehabilitation service provision on the other, are linked with the age and diagnoses of the patients, as well as the extent of their social activities.