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Economic Antecedents of Mental Hospitalization: A Nineteenth-Century Time-Series Test.
- Source :
- Journal of Health & Social Behavior; Jun1990, Vol. 31 Issue 2, p141-147, 7p, 1 Chart, 4 Graphs
- Publication Year :
- 1990
-
Abstract
- More than 100 studies have cited M. Harvey Brenner's (1973) claim that fluctuations in the economy increase the onset of mental illness and thus generate increases in mental hospitalization. Published attempts to replicate Brenner, however, have considered only twentieth-century data. One of Brenner's most memorable claims was that a stable inverse relationship between mental illness and the economy could be seen over a 127-year span beginning in the early nineteenth century. Unfortunately, no research since Brenner's has considered nineteenth-century populations. In this paper we analyze the hypothesis that economic change provokes a substantial fraction of first admissions to mental hospitals. We used admissions registers from the three institutions to construct a data base that approximates a psychiatric case register for a nineteenth-century American city from 1881 to 1891. Time-series tests show no support for the "provocation" hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- MENTAL health
ECONOMICS
PEOPLE with mental illness
HOSPITAL care
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00221465
- Volume :
- 31
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Health & Social Behavior
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 12875213
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.2307/2137168