Cross-national study of diagnosis of mental disorders: Hospital diagnoses and hospital patients in New York and London

Samples of patients from New York and London public mental hospitals were examined to investigate the sources of the reported cross-national difference in the ratio of schizophrenia to affective disorder among hospital admissions. The primary source of this difference was that the hospital staffs in New York tend to diagnose all kinds of patients (excluding alcoholics, drug addicts and patients with organic disorders) as schizophrenic, whereas in London some kinds of patients are diagnosed mainly as schizophrenic and others mainly as affective disorder.