Learning to Live in a Therapeutic Community: A study of elderly inpatients.

Abstract

Fifty-two elderly mental patients in a state hospital were transferred to a new milieu ward. In order to evaluate patient success in the unit, three outcome categories were defined nine months after the unit opened: discharge to the community, adjustment to the setting, and return to the previous ward. Despite the unit\u27s emphasis on performance criteria for success, staff evaluations of the patients\u27 personality rather than the patients\u27 achievement of the behavioural criteria, accounted for success in the setting