[Occupational rehabilitation of psychiatric patients in an occupation-specific facility--results of a study].

The day structure of persons with acute or chronic mental illness is a central problem field in the design of helping and supportive programmes. The specifics involved in chronic mental illness must therefore be taken into account to a sufficient degree. A specialized vocational rehabilitation centre has been established in Vienna in the process of reorganization of psychiatric care. The study presented, which comprised the 441 persons who had participated in programmes at the Centre during the initial six years of its operation, shows that rehabilitative intervention in particular has positive effects when taking place before premature pensioning. A follow-up study of 294 former programme participants found that a total of 132 persons (i.e., 44.9%) had been working permanently or at least occasionally after programme completion. Given the fact that the majority of rehabilitation interventions provided had occurred in cases deemed prognostically unfavourable, the findings clearly show the importance of specialized facilities. No significant influence on the course of rehabilitation was found to be related to age, sex, psychiatric diagnosis and frequency/duration of previous hospitalizations. The rehabilitative process took a more favourable course in persons whose stay in the Centre had extended beyond six months.