The Effects of Geographic Relocations on a General Hospital's Psychiatric Units

With the remodeling of general hospitals as well as the programmatic changes within hospitals, psychiatric units often have to move to a new setting. Such moves have an impact on the attitude and behavior of patients and staff. When two of three psychiatric units in a Veterans Administration hospital were forced to move to new locations within the hospital, staff tried to minimize expected negative effects of the move. The authors, using a questionnaire that assessed ward atmosphere, evaluated changes in patients and staff before and after the move. They found subjective and objective evidence that the move had the greatest negative impact on the single unit that remained in the same setting.