[Psychiatric hospitals in motion].

Abstract

Papers in respect to the topic "On the possibility of influencing the course of psychiatric illness" which were presented at the 5th Steinhof Symposium, October 1979 in Vienna, are summarized with the aim to focus on and to support necessary efforts for an improvement of psychiatric care. Investigations in inpatient populations (Strömgren, E.: Past and future changes in inpatient population; Gabriel, E.: Modifications in inpatient populations of big psychiatric hospitals) showed the importance of institutional differentiation and the similarity of problems in different countries, e.g. Denmark and Austria is mentioned. The papers of Ciompi (Prognosis in rehabilitation of chronic psychiatric patients) and Pfolz et al. (Factors preventing discharge of long-term inpatients from hospital) summarize concepts of inpatient care. In the papers of Schöny et. al. (Ward group therapy--its importance for the opening of psychiatric wards) and Lyon (Supervision of community--auxiliary lay workers) modern concepts of a pragmatic psychiatry are described. Trends in psychiatric inpatient care are becoming apparent which raise the hope that psychiatric hospitals will provide--through the aforementioned differentiation--more adequate care for the individual patient.