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The Social Disablement of Men in Hostels for Homeless People II. a Comparison with Patients from Long-stay Wards

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Walid Abdul Hamid*
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London
Til Wykes
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry
Stephen Stansfeld
Affiliation:
Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow, Essex
*
Dr W. A. Hamid, Institute of Psychiatry, DeCrespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF

Extract

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.

Method

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.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1995 

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