Group home residents' identities as patients and as community members.

OBJECTIVE: The study examined the extent to which group home residents identified with the roles of psychiatric patient and community member. It was hypothesized that a longer history of hospitalization and a lower level of functioning would be associated with a stronger patient identity and that longer community tenure would be related to a less pronounced identification with the patient role. METHODS: Fifty-seven group home residents were given a list of 50 features, or words describing thoughts, feelings, and personal characteristics. They were asked which features they would attribute to each of two identities--"myself as a psychiatric patient" and "myself as a community member." Correlations with hospitalization history, community tenure, and level of functioning were determined. RESULTS: Residents with greater cumulative time spent hospitalized attributed more features to their identity as a patient than to their identity as a community member, indicating a greater elaboration of patient identity. Residents with long community tenures were no more likely than those recently hospitalized to have a more extensively elaborated identity as a community member. Global functioning scores were not related to strength of identification with the patient role. CONCLUSIONS: Identification with the patient role persists among group home residents even after relatively long tenure in the community. Providers of residential services may find it more helpful to promote positive associations with community membership rather than to attempt to reduce identification with the patient role.

Use of formal assessments among providers of residential services for the seriously mentally ill.

A survey of use of formal scales in assessment was sent to 1381 agencies that provide residential services to the seriously mentally ill. 271 residential agencies responded. A majority of respondents who used formal assessments used in-house measures. Scales were used most often in client care decisions. A substantial minority of respondents reported being somewhat or very dissatisfied with existing scales. Lack of predictive ability and staff time required were the most frequently cited difficulties. The study indicates a need for better assessments to aid client-care planning, and promote interagency communication.

Self-structure in schizophrenia.

This study used a set-theoretical model to construct self-perception structures and person-perception structures for 10 recently hospitalized schizophrenic patients, 10 nonschizophrenic patients recently hospitalized for depression, and 10 nonpsychiatric subjects. Overall self-perception structures were significantly less elaborated in the schizophrenic patients when compared with either the psychiatric or the nonpsychiatric comparison group. No comparable differences were found for measures taken from the person-perception structures. The degree of elaboration of self in the particular context of self as psychiatric patient was found to be correlated (r = .74, p less than .01) with Global Assessment Scale ratings of current functional level in the schizophrenic group.