Functioning in Activities of Daily Living of Psychiatric Inpatients With Mental Retardation

Functioning in activities of daily living of 40 psychiatric inpatients with mental retardation was compared with that of nonhospitalized control subjects matched for sex, age, and level of intellectual impairment. After excluding data for six quadriplegic control subjects from the analyses, the only difference between the groups was that the inpatients were less impaired in seeing. The findings indicate that even a major psychiatric disorder does not necessarily impair functioning in activities of daily living among individuals with mental retardation. Thus normal functioning adjusted for intellectual impairment does not necessarily indicate the absence of a major psychiatric disorder.