PERSONALITY-TRAITS AND PSYCHIATRIC REHOSPITALIZATION - A 2-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

This study followed 188 people with psychiatric impairments for 2 year s after their discharge from a public psychiatric facility to assess t he impact of personality traits on rehospitalization. A Cox regression analysis revealed a significant relation between the pattern of perso nality traits and psychiatric rehospitalization. The significant relat ion was retained after age, sex, race, education, Axis I diagnosis, su bscale scores on the Brief Symptom Inventory, Methods of Coping Scale, Level of Expressed Emotion Scare, and scores on the alcohol and drug dependence scales of the MCMI-II were included in a stepwise inclusion analysis. The implications of these results for the assessment and tr eatment of people with psychiatric impairments are discussed.