| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is on the attitudes to discharge of mental
patients at the Matsapha Mental Hospital in Swaziland. It is
intended to ascertain the factors which influence patients'
attitudes to discharge - namely, factors which influence some
patients to want to leave the hospital while others want to
remain in the hospital.
An attitude scale was constructed to measure the patients'
attitudes to discharge. This was administered in conjunction
with the questionnaire. The questions in the questionnaire
were constructed such that they would high-light the factors
likely to influence patients' attitudes. This questionnaire/
attitude scale was contrasted by the researcher to seventy eight
patients who had been hospitalized for varying lengths of
time.
The interactions perspective was adopted in the explanation
of deviance at its outset as well as in the derivation of
particular attitudes; in this case, attitudes to discharge.
The major objectives of the study were to find out the
following:
(i) The basic background information on the patients;
(ii)The problems faced by patients prior to hospitalization;
(iii)The patients' views about hospitalization;
(iv)The patients' experiences during hospitalization;
(v) The relatives' responses to the patients' illnesses;
(vi)To relate all the above 10 the patients' attitudes
to discharge.
The attitude to discharge measure had three values, namely,
positive, negative and indifferent. Patients who had a positive
attitude comprised 42% of the respondents. Those with negative
and indifferent attitudes comprised 18% and 10%respectively.
The attitudes of the patients seem to be affected mainly
by the sex of the patients, the presence or absence of children,
whether he/she was told about hospitalization or not, and
whether he/she feels hiS/her relatives want him/her back home
or not.
for instance , ,·mere sex is concerned, the negative category
was comprised only of male patients. Less than a quarter
were females. Of the same patients, 64% did not have any
children and 76% of them were not married; 71% said they had
nowhere to go if they were discharged while 76% said that ~hey
did not think their relatives would be happy to have them back
home or were quite certain that they would not be welcomed
back to their homes.
In addition to these analyses, five case studies were done
to lend support to the statistical findings | |
