Overview: deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients, a critical review of outcome studies.

The authors performed a critical review of experimental studies on the outcomes for psychiatric patients of 1) alternatives to hospital admission, 2) modifications of conventional hospitalization, and 3) alternatives to continued long-term hospitalization. The internal validity of many of the studies was compromised by shortcomings in design and performance and generalizability limited by selection of patient populations. With these qualifications experimental alternatives to hospital care of patients have led to psychiatric outcomes not different from and occasionally superior to those of patients in control groups. This conclusion is best supported for alternatives to admission and for modifications of conventional hospitalization. The available studies do not permit firm conclusions regarding alternatives to continued long-term hospitalization of chronically ill patients or for a critical analysis of the optimal management of specific subpopulations of psychiatric patients. Satisfactory deinstitutionalization appears to depend on the availability of appropriate programs for care in the community.

Effects of chlordiazepoxide and oxazepam administration on verbal hostility.

We compare the effects of chlordiazepoxide, oxazepam, and placebo on hostility, as both an inner motivational or potential state and verbal interpersonal behavior. This article reports the findings relevant to the latter dimension of hostility and integrates them with those findings, presented in an initial report, relevant to hostility as an inner motivational state. The verbal data again support the hypothesis that chlordiazepoxide-induced increases in verbal interpersonal hostility, following frustration, are greater than those associated with placebo. With regard to oxazepam, the verbal hostility data were consonant with the motivational data that suggested that oxazepam does not substantially disinhibit hostility but did not as consistently differentiate oxazepam and chlordiazepoxide at the level of overt hostile behavior.

The effect of marijuana on small group process.

In a research group setting, marijuana increased social-emotional interpersonal communication and decreased task-oriented behavior. Following a frustration stimulus, groups of marijuana smokers appeared nonintoxicated and showed improvement in consensus problem solving. Interpersonal behavior with marijuana may depend in part, on the presence or absence of demand characteristics for task performance. Creativity in group problem solving was not improved by marijuana.

The differential effects of chlordiazepoxide and oxazepam on hostility in a small group setting.

The authors compared the effects of chlordiazepoxide, oxazepam, and placebo on hostility, as an inner motivational or arousal state, in moderately and highly anxious male research volunteers. The data again supported the hypothesis that clordiazepoxide-induced increases in motivational hostility are more frequent and intense than those associated with placebo and oxazepum. The data also suggest that oxazepam may be a more specific "hostility tranquilizer" than other benzodiazepines.

Methaqualone abusers: a preliminary survey of college students.

A questionnaire was used to survey the methaqualone experiences of college student users, and psychological test data from these users and a control group of non-users were compared. On differential pattern found was that methaqualone users have experimented with a wider variety of psychoactive drugs than have non-users. However, the two groups were essentially indistinguishable on the psychological test variables assessed. A preliminary modal profile of the college student methaqualone abuser and abuse experience was generated.

Psychopharmacologic investigations in healthy elderly volunteers: effects of pipradrol-vitamin (Alertonic) elixir and placebo in relation to research design.

Ninety-nine healthy elderly volunteers were tested to assess the effects of: 1) a pipradrol-vitamin (Alertonic) elixir, 2) a placebo, and 3) no treatment, during a one-week period. The assessment measures were the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Depression Scale, the Zung Depression Scale, Profile of Mood States, and the WAIS Digit Span. Alertonic had no sigmificant effects on mood, memory or appetite, and the placebo effect was rarely greater than 50 per cent. There were no significant side effects. The findings demonstrate a valid method for studying psychotropic agents in the elderly.