Forced relocation of hospitalized psychiatric patients.

By virtue of their disability and hospital program requirements, severely and chronically mentally ill patients are subject to involuntary transfer from the community to hospitals, within hospitals, between hospitals, and from hospitals to the community. These forced relocations, no matter how humanely they were initially conceived to be, have become highly routine. The consequence is loss of the sense of the patient as a human being with individual needs. This research elicited the patients' own descriptions and the meanings they attached to the experience of forced relocation. The findings point to the need for greater success of programs designed to keep patients in their home communities to the greatest extent possible. The findings also suggest the need for hospital staff to eliminate or reduce intrahospital transfers and to develop and maintain humane transfer procedures when forced relocation becomes necessary.