Patients Who Schedule Meetings with a State Hospital Review Board

Abstract

61 psychiatric and 18 alcoholic patients who sought redress from a state hospital review board over a 6-yr. period were compared with normative data for new admissions to their treatment areas on the basis of selected demographic and MMPI personality characteristics. The typical visitor emerged as significantly younger than his treatment counterpart who did not go to the board. He was significantly more likely to be a committed patient and had a treatment history which dated back almost 10 yr. Personality differences suggested that these visitors from the psychiatric unit of the hospital were significantly more sociopathic, manipulative, and impatient than the average psychiatric new admission and that alcoholics who went to the review board were significantly more defensive and denying than the typical alcoholic.