Long-stay and long-term psychiatric patients in an area with a community-based system of care. A register follow-up study.

In South-Verona, where a community-based system of care consonant with the provisions of the Italian psychiatric reform has been operating since 1978, case-register data show that Long-stay inpatient rates are decreasing, while rates of patients treated long-term outside the mental hospital (i.e. those in "continuous care for one year, receiving treatment in the community by the various out-patient and day-patient facilities and in some cases short spells of inpatient care") show a recent increasing trend. Long-stay inpatients on 31.12.1982 have been compared with long-term community patients on the same date. The two cohorts were similar in terms of basic sociodemographic variables and contained a similar proportion of psychotic patients. However, while 88% of the long-stay inpatients were still long-stay after two years, only 45% of the long-term patients in the community remained in long-term treatment over the same period. Using a log-linear model, diagnosis was found to be the variable with the highest association in the long-term cohort with subsequent pattern of use of mental health services.