Community Mental Health Centers and the decreasing use of state mental hospitals

Abstract

To test the success of the Community Mental Health Centers Program goal of reducing state hospital utilization, changes in state mental hospital resident and admission rates were calculated, using 16 states, for counties wholly within or outside of catchment areas served by operating, federally funded community mental health centers. There was no consistent relationship between the opening of centers and changes in state hospital resident rates. However, counties with centers tended to decrease more (or increase less) in state hospital admission rates than areas without centers.

The mental health sector and the social sciences in post-World War II USA Part 2: The impact of federal research funding and the drugs revolution

“…Instead, they directed their programmes towards 'entirely new categories of patients, most of whom had no prior history of psychiatric hospitalization' (Kolb, Frazier and Sirovatka, 2000) -indeed, people whose prob lems in large part would not previously have been seen as belonging in the psychiatric arena (Grob, 1991: 254-5;Gronfein, 1985b;Kiesler and Sibulkin, 1987;NIMH, 1972;Windle and Scully, 1976). From the outset, these organizations deliberately sought to avoid devoting any significant portion of their resources to the treatment of the severely and chronically disturbed.…”

“…From the outset, these organizations deliberately sought to avoid devoting any significant portion of their resources to the treatment of the severely and chronically disturbed. Instead, they directed their programmes towards 'entirely new categories of patients, most of whom had no prior history of psychiatric hospitalization' (Kolb, Frazier and Sirovatka, 2000) -indeed, people whose prob lems in large part would not previously have been seen as belonging in the psychiatric arena (Grob, 1991: 254-5;Gronfein, 1985b;Kiesler and Sibulkin, 1987;NIMH, 1972;Windle and Scully, 1976).…”

Defining ‘Mental Illness’ In Mental Health Policy

“…In fact, however, there was little direct relationship. 9 By the mid-1970s, the NIMH realized that it needed to improve CMHCs' role in caring for people with more-severe disorders. This re-alization was spurred further by a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) study critical of the CMHC program for not doing more to improve the lives of people with "chronic mental illness."…”

Effects of the community mental health centers program on the growth of mental health facilities in nonmetropolitan areas

“…Most examinations of local mental health service networks have only studied a single area or explored the CMHC's relationship with state and county mental hospitals (e.g., Babigian, 1977;Windle & Scully, 1976; Socio-Technical Systems, Note 1). One effort, though, attempted to document the adequacy of services in all areas based on a model of comprehen-siveness derived from the CMHC program (Longest, Konan, & Tweed, 1976).…”