Psychiatric in-patients from a mixed community: a statistical examination and an assessment of the patient records of two hospitals

Clarke, Malcolm

Abstract

The thesis presents results and conclusions from an examination and analysis of the hospital records for a year's intake of psychiatric in-patients to St. Edwards mental illness Hospital, Cheddleton and the City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent, which together serve a common catchment area of North Staffordshire. Three principal objectives are separately identified and pursued in the thesis.
The first objective is a comparison of the functioning of a psychiatric unit in a general hospital with the mental illness hospital which serves the same catchment population, with respect to the characteristics of their admitted in-patients
and the outcome of admission, principally the length of stay, for those patients. The use of records kept by both hospitals enabled this research to complement other investigations which have either compared hospitals which do not serve the same catchment area or were conducted on small or non-comprehensive samples of patients.
The second objective is the identification of the characteristics of those admitted as psychiatric in-patients in North Staffordshire on a variety of social, demographic and geographic variables, and of the inter-relationships between those characteristics both for comparison with other research on psychiatric in-patients and for the presentation of some new material. This also incorporates an examination of the rate of in-patient admission per unit population within defined sub­populations, particularly socio-economic groups and the various local authority areas within the catchment population. Four areas of specific interest are also examined in detail. These are firstly, the relationship between social class and other patient characteristics; secondly, certain aspects of the working of the Mental Health Act, 1959; thirdly, variations in the pattern of admissions over time; and fourthly, differences between the various diagnostic categories in which depressive patients are included.
The third objective is a critical assessment of the usefulness of,and deficiencies in ,the systems of information collection at hospital and national levels for the purposes of monitoring and investigating the working and performance of mental illness hospitals. Arising out of this, appropriate changes are suggested both in the content of the information collected and in the system under which the records are retained and processed.
The large sample size afforded by the use of existing records enabled various established statistical techniques to be applied to these particular data for the first time, but the thesis is concerned not with the development of statistical techniques or methodology, but with the use of established techniques to further the objectives identified above.

Citation

Clarke, M. (1977). Psychiatric in-patients from a mixed community: a statistical examination and an assessment of the patient records of two hospitals

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