A comparison of psychiatric admissions (1978-1980), from two Irish representative rural and urban communities, indicated no significant intercommunity difference in incidence rates for alcoholism and schizophrenia but significantly higher urban first admissions for neuroses. Total admissions data indicated significantly higher urban readmission rates for alcoholism and neuroses. In contrast to earlier research, read mission rates for schizophrenia were equivalent in the rural and urban community. Several methodological issues were examined to clarify this divergent finding. A demographic comparison indicated rural schizophrenics were admitted at a later age and were more frequently readmitted. The implications of these findings and direc tions for future research on hospital utilization were discussed.
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