Factors related to length of stay in a state psychiatric hospital for schizophrenic patients

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between schizophrenic patients' length of stay in a state psychiatric hospital and readily available intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociodemographic factors. The factors selected for study were:1. Admission Legal Basis2. Relationship of Responsible Person3. Previous Episodes of Hospitalization 4. Sex5. Admission Age. 6. Marital Status7. Race8. Education9. DiagnosisThe subjects were 461 patients admitted to the Richmond, Indiana State Hospital from July 1, 1974 to June 30, 1979. All patients who met the criteria for selection were included.The design for the study was the ex post facto approach. It was essentially a Design 3 situation using only one group and holding to the assumption of random distribution of nonmanipulated variables. Two null hypotheses were tested using stepwise hierarchical multiple regression. The .05 level of significance was required.FindingsThe multiple regression analysis yielded a significant multiple correlation (R = .26, R2 = .07, P <.05) between length of stay as the dependent variable and the composite predictor variable. However, an inspection of the results showed that Admission Legal Basis was the only variable found to be individually significant. In view of the low amount (7%) of variance explained by the composite predictor variable, the analysis was terminated at that point and the results were not interpreted or considered to have a practical use.ConclusionThe only conclusion made was that the results of this study were inconclusive due to the small percentage of variance explained. Thus it was hypothesized that there were factors which remained unidentified that were in operation and greatly influenced length of stay.Thesis (Ph. D.