The new chronic patient and the system of community care.

Deinstitutionalization has created a new type of patient--the new young chronic--who has received most or all of his treatment during brief hospital stays and through extended contact with outpatient community care programs. A one-year study of 119 new chronic patients entering treatment in New York City between 1977 and 1979 casts light on their living arrangements, use of mental health services, social functioning, criminal activity, suicide attempts, and symptomatology.