Mental illness and social background : the case of a hospital population

Abstract

Although everyone involved, including politicians, seems to be in favour of integration and deinstitutionalisation, it is also a time where cost-effectiveness and even cost cutting are parallel principles which have to be considered in social policy. With these conflicting ends in mind, I decided to pursue this study. Policy makers and administrators are people who plan and implement programs which are ultimately for the benefit of the people they serve - in our case, mentally ill persons. But who are these people, where are they coming from, what do they really need? After analyzing basic concepts and perspectives on mental illness in Chapter Two, the subject is explored within a Maltese context. There are literally thousands of publications which deal with concepts and perspectives, and thus the complexity of the study starts at this stage, but as expected, very little literature is available on the Maltese situation. Dr. Paul Cassar (1948) gives a good historical account of institutionalisation of mentally ill persons in Malta, and in Chapter Three, this history is summarized with the intention of facilitating a better understanding of the present situation at Mount Carmel where this research study is carried out. From the past we shall move to future directions, where the Mental Health Policy (1995), is discerned. Chapter Four is a secondary data analysis, principally looking at demographic data from Mount Carmel Hospital (1994 census). The collection of this data serves to obtain the general profile of residents at Mount Carmel and to find out the distribution of patients by locality. In order to analyse which locality has the largest number of institutionalised people, the 1995 national census preliminary report was used alongside the hospital census. Chapter Five contains the research findings and the analyses. This research was necessary to find out the patient's attitudes towards mental health and services and to find out the patients' future social and economic support systems. It has been recognized that although the trend is towards deinstitutionalisation, not all mentally ill can be treated in the community. As a result, it is necessary that when we refer to mental health services we need to encompass the hospital as well.