[Occupational handicaps as risk factors for the readmission of psychiatric patients hospitalized for the first time--results of a prospective longitudinal study].

In dealing with the issue of readmission of psychiatric patients into in-patient care, the focus had in the past primarily been on clinical variables such as diagnosis, or severity of the clinical picture. The present study, however, had centered on occupational variables, such as vocational training, occupational status, periods of gainful employment, and unemployment. This complex was studied in a sample of psychiatric patients, with analyses directed at: percentage of the initial sample readmitted after a catamnestic period of 1 and 2 1/2 yrs. resp., diagnostic groups with increased readmission incidence, and occupational variables associated with the need for readmission. Summing up, it may be stated that occupational handicaps arose in particular in the diagnostic groups of endogenous psychoses, whereas in other groups (such as neuroses, alcoholism) the issue of "social handicaps", in particular, had been in the foreground.