ACCOMMODATION FOR MENTALLY-ILL PERSONS - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY

The psychiatric services of the Swiss region of Basel-Landschaft obser ved an increasing deterioration and shortage of accommodation offers f or mentally ill persons. At the same time, it grew temporally more and more difficult to let single rooms in flat-sharing communities. There fore a psychiatric services research project aimed at evaluating the w ishes and needs of specialists in the housing sphere, and of about 600 in-and outpatients, as well as for their caregivers. The results show ed, similar to other studies, on the one hand patients' predominant wi sh to live independently, whereas on the other hand there was a great difference between the views of patients and their caregivers. The lat ter view this aspiration for independence rather skeptically. The stri king disagreement between patients and caregivers may be fruitful for the therapeutic process; however, this applies only if both partners a re aware of this fact.