The social disablement of men in hostels for homeless people. II. A comparison with patients from long-stay wards.
BACKGROUND
Some authors have argued that hostels for homeless people are increasingly taking over the role of psychiatric long-stay wards, and that this creates a problem. We set out to test this hypothesis.


METHODS
The social disablement of a random sample of 101 homeless men, described in Part 1, was compared with that of a sample of 66 psychiatric patients from a long-stay ward.


RESULTS
The study sample rated significantly lower for social disablement than the long-stay ward sample. Thirteen subjects of the hostel sample had psychotic social behaviour problems. These had no history of being long-stay psychiatric patients.


CONCLUSIONS
The hostel sample differ significantly in their social disablement from the chronic psychiatric patients. There is a small proportion of severely disturbed residents who might have been over-represented in previous non-random surveys.
Hamid
W A
WA
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London.
Wykes
T
T
Stansfeld
S
S
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D012931:Social Environment