Factors Influencing First Admission Rates to Canadian Mental Hospitals.: III. An Analysis by Education,Marital Status,Country of Birth,Religion and Rural-Urban Residence,1950–1952.
Free accessResearch articleFirst published online April, 1959
Factors Influencing First Admission Rates to Canadian Mental Hospitals.: III. An Analysis by Education,Marital Status,Country of Birth,Religion and Rural-Urban Residence,1950–1952.
This is the third and final part of a study of factors influencing first admission rates to Canadian mental hospitals, and consists of an analysis of variations in these rates (during the period 1950–1952) according to education, marital status, country of birth, religion and rural-urban residence.
In the two earlier parts of this study, variations according to time and place were analysed, and it was concluded that first admission rates do not simply reflect incidence, but that other basic determinants include such factors as the reliability of data and calculations, social judgement concerning what constitutes mental abnormality, social demand for mental hospital care, availability of mental hospital accommodation and of alternative facilities for psychiatric treatment, and variations in diagnostic criteria.
Nevertheless, variation in first admission rates may also result from variations in incidence, and in this event differences in rates between social groups may be interpreted as due to either selection (on the basis of established abnormality or of predisposition) or protection (against precipitating environmental stress or deprivation).
The present study confirms previous findings of high first admission rates among those of limited education; among the single, widowed and divorced; and among the foreign born, particularly fairly recent immigrants.
It appears that, in so far as these rates reflect differences in incidence, the latter are predominantly related to selection rather than protection; and it is postulated that selection (by education, marriage, migration, etc.) occurs on the basis of such factors as physical health, intellectual capacity, emotional stability and socio-economic opportunity.
Differences in rates according to religious affiliation and rural-urban residence have been discussed, and appear to reflect interaction of a number of variables.
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