Patterns of disorder in first admission psychiatric patients.

Are there patterns of characteristics in psychiatric patients, different from traditional diagnostic considerations, that could provide important information for understanding, treatment, and research? To pursue this question, this report describes an investigation of clinical and demographic characteristics in a representative sample of first admissions for functional psychiatric disorder. Analyzing the patterns of these characteristics showed that social class had a particularly key role relating to a larger number of characteristics than did symptom and functioning measures. Symptoms when analyzed together revealed replicated factors not corresponding to diagnostic types. The implications of these and other findings for considering a broad perspective in conceptualizing, studying, and treating psychiatric disorder are discussed.