Mental patients' attitudes toward hospitalization: a neglected aspect of hospital tenure.

Recent research on hospital tenure has neglected mental patients' attitudes toward hospitalization. The authors consider problems with past research on these attitudes and examine "living preference"--the patient's preference for living in the hospital or the community. Assessments of patients' living preferences were obtained from clinicians working with 187 chronically mentally ill patients in a state hospital aftercare program. These assessments strongly predicted both components of hospital tenure--rehospitalization and in-hospital days--during a 1-year follow-up. The authors point out the conceptual, heuristic, and practical clinical advantages of examining living preference rather than traditional correlates of hospital tenure.