THE FUTURE OF THE SCHIZOPHRENIA ADMISSIONS - 18 YEARS FOLLOW-UP

This ist a work on 18 years of research following up a group of 86 sch izophrenic patients who were hospitalized for the first time in our de partment for acute psychiatric cases in the Clinical Hospital of Zarag oza University (Spain) during the years 1976, 1977 & 1978. These patie nts were studied from October 1993 to March 1994 by means of the ESEP (Follow-up Interview for Psychiatric Patients) created by the authors. The number of out-patient consultations needed by these patients over 18 years was analyzed - the which totaled some 95 consultations, in o ther words each patient needed to consult his/her psychiatrist on aver age 5.28 times a year. The average number of hospitalizations was 5, b etween them amounting to a total of 530 days in hospital. Thus the ave rage yearly rate of hospitalization between them was 29 days. However the follow-up demonstrates how the majority of these hospitalizations occurred during the first two years and the probability of hospitaliza tion after these first two years never rises above 0.25.