The Influence of Hospitalization on the Verbal Behaviour of Chronic Schizophrenics

¹ Research Psychologist, Bureau of Research in Neurology and Psychiatry, Box 1,000, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.

This study supported Yates's hypothesis that length of stay in hospital is the most potent variable relating to decline of verbal abilities in both schizophrenic and non-psychiatric patients. Attempts were made to control many variables that had been confounded with length of hospital stay in previous studies, and to control a number of premorbid factors. Chronic physical disease patients were selected as the control group. These subjects were from large public hospitals and suffering from diseases leading to long-term confinement (as does schizophrenia).

The schizophrenic groups (long-term N=11; short-term N=13) were selected with attention to sixteen variables, and groups matched on such factors as severity of illness, behaviour during testing, I.Q., and previous therapeutic history. These subjects were given eight verbal tests which had been shown either to differentiate between schizophrenics and normals or between patients at various levels of severity of illness.

Results showed clearly that long-term patients performed at a lower level than short-term patients on six of the eight tests.

The chronic physical disease groups (N=19 in each) were not selected as carefully as were the schizophrenic patients. They were given only a free association test, on which LT patients did not perform as well as the ST group.

Various criticisms of the present design were advanced, and the study compared with a longitudinal investigation (published after completion of the present research) which had drawn exactly opposite conclusions as to the effects of hospitalization on verbal abilities. The shortcomings of this latter study were indicated and it was concluded that the results did not, infact, invalidate Yates's hypothesis.