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A Statistical Study of the Influence of Marriage on the Hospital Care of the Mentally Sick

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

Vera Norris
Vera Norris*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5
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Extract

The handicap of the single as compared with the married state in respect of the first admission rates to mental hospitals has been demonstrated by several workers. Dayton (1939), Malzberg (1940) and 0degaard (1946), to mention but a few, have all shown that the admission rates for single persons are greater than those for married persons of the same age. Hospital first admission rates for mental disorders are more likely to give reliable estimates of the incidence of mental disease than are hospital rates for other types of illness, nevertheless hospital admissions are but a sample of the sick population in the community and, generally speaking, there is no means of knowing whether or not it is a representative sample of the total sick population. For this reason, in this paper it is only the effect of marital status on the hospital care of the mentally sick that it is to be considered. This appears to be a necessary restriction in view of the fact that the data analysed here relate only to hospital admissions, but ⊘degaard (1946) categorically stated, although his data, too, were derived from mental hospitals:

“It is shown beyond doubt that the incidence of mental disease is much higher in the single than in the married, and that this ‘predominance of the single’ among our insane is no statistical figment caused by such factors as differences in age distribution or in the tendency to hospitalize the insane.”

The purpose of this paper is not to discuss differential admission rates between single and married, although some data will be presented to show that the difference exists here as well as in Scandinavia and the United States, for I have dealt with that problem elsewhere.∗ The very great differences between the first admission rates for single and married persons led me to ask the question: “What other differences arise between single and married persons with respect to mental hospital care?” The data of a statistical study of mental hospital admissions which I have already completed provide some information on this point.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 102 , Issue 428 , July 1956 , pp. 467 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1956 

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References

Harris, A., Auerbach, I., Norris, V., and Shepherd, M., A paper entitled “Schizophrenia—A Prognostic and Social Study”. (In preparation.) Google Scholar
Dayton, N., New Facts on Mental Disorder, 1939. Baltimore: C. C. Thomas.Google Scholar
Malzberg, B., Social and Biological Aspects of Mental Disease, 1940. Utica, N.Y.: State Hospitals Press.Google Scholar
Norris, V., A Monograph with the tentative title: “The Hospital Care of the Mentally Sick in the County of London.” (In preparation.) Google Scholar
Ødegaard, O., J. Ment. Sci., 1946, 92, 35–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, W. F., Anderson, R. B., Martin, M. P., and Philpot, D. F., Amer. J. Psychiat., 1955, 3, 576–582.Google Scholar
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