STABILITY OF PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENTS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ADMISSION EXPERIENCE

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the stability (i.e., con sistency of patients' responses over time) of newly developed scales t o measure the admission experience of psychiatric hospitalization. Eig hty-four psychiatric patients involuntarily committed to a crisis stab ilization unit participated. All participants were admitted under an e mergency petition or ex parte order for a psychiatric evaluation. Pati ents were interviewed soon alter admission (M = 3.33 days, SD = 1.86 d ays). The test-retest interval was 24-48 hours with most (83.3%) re-ev aluated at 24 hours. Overall. the measures showed acceptable levels of stability (r's range from .62 to .72). Factors associated with reliab le responses were tower overall psychiatric symptom severity, less sev ere psychotic symptoms, and mentioning the same person as an influence of perceptions about the admission experience at each assessment poin t. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.