The British Journal of Psychiatry (1972) 121: 515-524. doi: 10.1192/bjp.121.5.515
© 1972 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Parental Social Class in Psychiatric Patients

E. H. HARE M.A., M.D., F.R.C.Psych.1, J. S. PRICE D.M., M.R.C.Psych.2, and E. SLATER C.B.E., M.D., F.R.C.Psych.3

1 Bethlem Royal and the Maudsley Hospitals, Denmark Hill, London, S.E.5
2 Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
3 Institute of Psychiatry, London, S.E.5

1. For a randomized sample of 624 patients attending (as out-patient or in-patient) a hospital, the social class of their fathers was determined from the patients' birth certificates. There was a significant variation in social class distribution by year of birth of the patients. An analysis of parental social class was made for four diagnostic groups—neurosis, schizophrenia, manic-depression, and personality disorder—after correcting for diagnostic differences in year of birth. In none of the diagnostic groups was the parental social class distribution different from that of the sample as a whole. The parental social class distributions were very similar to those of the appropriate census figures. For the group as a whole the social class distribution of fathers was not influenced by the sex of the patient.

2. Age affected the social class distribution both of fathers and of patients. For the neurotic cases, the effect on both fathers and patients was a general upward movement in social class with increasing age. For the fathers of schizophrenic patients there was downward as well as upward movement; the downward movement appeared to be largely due to vague or inadequate recording of the father's occupation at the time of the patient's attendance at hospital.

Attention is drawn to the fact that social class distribution in the general population varies considerably with age.

3. When the highest social class level achieved by a patient before his illness was compared with that of his father at the time of the patient's birth, no significant difference was found between schizophrenia and neurosis. But at the time of the patient's first hospital attendance a significant proportion of schizophrenic patients compared with neurotics were in a lower social class than their fathers. A further fall in social class had occurred among schizophrenic patients at the time of their last attendance. These findings are taken to indicate that selection played a relatively small part, and drift a relatively large part, in the low social class distribution of schizophrenic patients compared with their fathers.

Submitted on January 14, 1972




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