Current utilization of day hospitalization.

The present study examined characteristics of comparable samples of patients admitted to nonaffiliated day and full-time psychiatric hospitals. Moreover, the influence of the day hospital program on symptomatology and social functioning was assessed. In general, the results indicated that day patients were of higher socioeconomic status and had fewer previous hospitalizations in comparison to 24-hour patients. While fewer day patients were diagnosed as psychotic, they did obtain higher scores of social inadequacy, depression and social introversion. Participation in the day hospital program was generally found to be related to decreased psychopathology, increased self-esteem and social role activities, and symptom relief. However, patients suffering from functional psychoses were found to demonstrate improvement below the average of the patient sample. These results were discussed in relation to previous research.