Deinstitutionalization for long-term mental illness: a 6-year evaluation.

Objective: Forty-seven patients with long-term mental illness were transferred to the community following the closure of a psychiatric hospital in Sydney. This 6-year evaluation is an extension of a detailed clinical, ethnographic and economic study of the initial 2-years of community transition.

Method: Quantitative evaluation was conducted using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Life Skills Profile, Social Behaviour Scale, Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale and Quality Of Life measures.