title: Differentiating psychiatric readmissions from nonreadmissions.
abstract: This study tracked a cohort of 550 discharged state hospital patients through an entire publicly-funded mental health aftercare system. Data from hospital and community agency records indicate that neither social-demographic nor clinical characteristics successfully differentiated psychiatric readmissions from nonreadmissions. Use of aftercare services--in terms of the variety available and their relevance to discharged patients' assessed needs--had the greatest influence on predicting the likelihood of readmission.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000359:Aftercare; D000368:Aged; D003156:Community Mental Health Services; D003688:Deinstitutionalization; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010359:Patient Readmission