The new chronic psychiatric population

Abstract

Data from the Camberwell Register are used to examine the accumulation of a new chronic population in three forms of psychiatric care—inpatient, day patient, and hostel care. For the period 1964-72, against the background of expanding psychiatric services, the number and characteristics of new long-stay patients in each form of care are analysed. The net accumulation of new long-stay inpatients stabilized after a few years; the population of long-stay day patients and residents in psychiatric hostels was still increasing. The epidemiological basis of the study allows the numbers to be expressed as rates per head of population.