Wives, Mothers, and the Posthospital Performance of Mental Patients

Mental patients who remain in the community & who are of the same performance level should have relatives with similar personality characteristics (whether wives or mothers). Mothers & wives of `high level patients' should also differ from relatives of `low level patients' (again, regardless of the familial roles of the women). These hyp's were tested by interviewing all F relatives (predominantly wives & mothers) of M patients who had remained in the community since released from a mental hospital during Nov, 1954 & Dec, 1955. The universe of M patients having the following characteristics was contacted: 20-64 yrs of age, white, native born, living in the Boston area at the time of release, hospitalized more than 45 days prior to release, not physically handicapped to the extent of being unemployable, not addicted to narcotics, & not primarily hospitalized for acute alcoholism. Of the 209 attempted interviews, 182 were completed. Scales of the Cornell Medical College's `Midtown Study' were used, specifically those for frustration-depression, regidity, withdrawal, & optimism, Srole's Authoritarianism & Anomia Scales were also incorporated, as were items employed by Cattell to measure dominance & possessiveness. No analysis of dimensionality was undertaken. Low level M patients were found to live with F relatives who tend to be frustrated, withdrawn, authoritarian, rigid, & anomic. These variables are viewed as characteristics of individuals rather than of groups. Pearsonian R's between patients' performance levels & personality characteristics of their wives & mothers were not found to be artifacts of the between family setting & performance level. There are, however, high inter-R's between the personality variables. The lack of independence between the scales limits their usefulness as predictors of performance level. Probably 2 conditions operate in these situations: the responses of the F relatives are a consequence of having a low level patient in the household & at the same time these characteristics tend to be precedent conditions to some extent. G. A. Hillery, Jr.