Mortality in the long-stay population of all Dutch mental hospitals.

A study of 1,506 deaths reported over a period of 2 years to the National Psychiatric Case Register of the Netherlands, on the total cohort of 17,211 long-stay patients counted on prevalence day (31 December 1969), showed very much higher death-rates than in the general population. Malignancy and cardiac disease were not so common, while respiratory disease was still common in inpatients.