A HIGH-RISK SCREEN FOR PSYCHIATRIC DISCHARGE PLANNING

This article tests the hypothesis that psychiatric impatients at high risk for presenting difficulties in aftercare planning can be accurate ly identified on admission to an inpatient unit. A 16-item high-risk s creening list is presented that was developed through an earlier analy sis of discharge-delayed cases in a psychiatric hospital. The capacity of the list to accurately predict high-risk status was tested by comp aring admission and discharge high-risk scores for 448 patients with a range of psychiatric disorders. Sixty-six percent of the patients rat ed high risk at admission were identically rated at discharge. Differe nces among risk groups were also found with respect to key demographic variables. The high-risk screen permits early identification of patie nts who will require immediate and intensive environmental interventio ns. Such data are critical to psychiatric social work in preventing ov erstays and in deploying department resources with maximum effectivene ss.