Psychiatric Aftercare: Planning for a Community Mental Health Service

Each year about 325,000 persons are admitted as patients to public mental hospitals in the United States. Less than half are first admissions; 175,000 are readmissions. And each year about 310,000 patients leave the public mental hospitals. They undertake the hazards of living again, as ex-patients, in the community. More than half will return, at some time, to hospital. The highest proportion will return within the first year after release.

Mental health workers, planners, and administrator...