FACTORS AFFECTING THE SUCCESS OF COMMUNITY PLACEMENT - THE TAPS PROJECT-26

Long-stay patients who were discharged from Friern and Claybury hospit als during the 6-year period between September 1985 and August 1991 we re followed up for at least 1 year and the details of all readmissions were recorded. Of the 615 hospital leavers, some 178 (29%) were readm itted at some time during the follow-up period. A proportional hazards regression analysis revealed a number of independent baseline factors which affect the risk of readmission at any time during the follow-up period. Younger patients were more at risk of readmission than were o lder patients and 'new' long-stay patients had a greater risk than bas eline patients. Risk was also greater in patients who had a larger num ber of pre-discharge admissions,a higher abnormal behaviour score (PSE BSO) or a diagnosis of manic psychosis, An ordinal logistic regressio n analysis revealed that these same five factors tended to increase th e actual number of readmission episodes, The proportion of post-discha rge time spent in hospital among the readmitted patients was found to be greater for males, new long-stay patients and for patients with a h igher number of positive social behaviour symptoms (SBSPOS score).