Abstract
To examine the causes of long hospitalization we researched the schizophrenic patients who had been in the National Center Hospital for Mental, Nervous and Muscular Disorders on June 30 th 1992. We checked 71 patients, whose hospitalization had lasted for a maximum of 2 years, to see whether they continued their hospitalization or became outpatients. And we also examined the past history, psychiatric symptoms and the general rating scale, and compared the changes of the mental symptoms of patients who continued their hospitalization over a 5 year period (1992-1997). We used the Manchester Scale (MS) and the Ward Behavior Rating Scale (WBRS) as symptom rating scales and converted the drug dose into Haloperidol to examine. At the time of research, the group of patients who were discharged had a higher score than the group of patients who remained hospitalized in the MS and the WBRS scores which related to negative symptoms. But there were no significant differences in the scores of positive symptoms between the two groups. And in the group of patients who remained hospitalized the negative symptoms had became worse and the positive symptoms had still been serious. These results suggested that the highly scored positive symptoms and the related abnormal behavior were the part of the main reasons for un-discharged.
