Abstract
The distribution of psychiatric diagnoses was examined in samples of patients attending an emergency clinic, a short-stay unit, and a long-stay unit of the same hospital system. Two sets of diagnoses were analyzed, namely “routine hospital” and “standard project” diagnoses of proven reliability.
A comparison of the two methods showed that routine hospital diagnoses, even when made by psychiatrists in the same hospital system, may give a misleading picture of distribution changes. However, both sets of diagnoses agreed that patients with affective disorders tend to be treated in the short-stay unit, while schizophrenics tend to be sent on to the long-stay unit.
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Gurland, B.J., Sharpe, L., Stiller, P. et al. Trends in patient populations contrasted by two methods of diagnosis. Psych Quar 47, 184–190 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01562224
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01562224