The young adult chronic psychiatric patient in an era of deinstitutionalization.

Assessments of the consequences of deinstitutionalization tend to focus primarily on observable changes in psychiatric services. Equally critical, and less often noted, are changes in the target population of deinstitutionalization that have accrued as the result of new service initiatives and changing loci of care. Young adult chronic psychiatric patients, a newly emerging service entity, throw into bold relief the problems associated with delivering care to a changing patient population.