High Expectations of Long-Term Ex-State Hospital Patients

In an effort to determine the effectiveness of rehabilitation efforts with long-term patients who leave state hospitals, discharged patients were randomly assigned to high- or low-expectation programs in the community. The high-expectation setting included a day treatment center and a halfway house. The low-expectation setting included mostly boarding homes, where little was required of the patients. The authors found that the high-expectation setting was superior to the other not so much in keeping patients out of the hospital longer but in increasing their level of vocational and social functioning.