The social integration of psychiatric patients in nursing homes.

The authors explored self-reports of the social integration of 163 chronically ill psychiatric patients who were admitted to 12 nursing homes over a 1-year period. Results suggest that nursing home care for psychiatric patients is custodial and institutional in character and that the social integration of such patients is generally low. Nursing home patients had lower scores than outpatients but not inpatients on a measure of social participation; they were similar to both these groups on measures of spending and employment. Levels of social integration changed little over 1 year, either for better or for worse.