Records of deceased patients at a terminal-care cancer institute were examined to discover whether temporal distance to death varied as a function of the disparity between the patients' preadmission living arrangement and the institutional life style. The major finding was that those patients who came to the institute from other hospitals survived nearly one month longer, on the average, than the patients who came from a dissimilar home environment. It was argued that the detrimental effects of severe residential change are mediated by feelings of helplessness.
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