Home vs Hospital Care for Schizophrenics

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effects of the treatment of schizophrenics at home under public health nursing care and a drug regimen, 193 patients were randomly assigned to either a drug home care group, a placebo home care group, or a hospital control group. The findings in the first 18 months of the program indicate that: (1) the drug patients have been more successful in remaining at home than the placebo cases, (2) this superiority increases with length of time on the project and, (3) home care patients, drug and placebo, spend a greater percentage of treatment time at home than those patients assigned to the hospital control group. Family, economic, and psychiatric problems encountered by patients remaining in the community indicate the need for a more comprehensive program.