A Fifteen-Year Review of Female Admissions to Carstairs State Hospital
PATRICK W. BROOKS B.Sc., M.B., Ch.B., M.R.C.Psych.1 and
GEOFFREY MITCHELL M.B., Ch.B., M.R.C.Psych., D.C.H.2
1 Medical Officer, Scottish Home and Health Department, St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh 1
2 Consultant Psychiatrist, Carstairs State Hospital, Carstairs Junction, Lanarkshire
A survey was made of all female admissions to the State Hospital, Carstairs, between the time of the first female admissions in 1959, and 31 December 1973. There were 66 female admissions, constituting 7.1 per cent of the total admissions over the same period. The females fall into two separate sub-groups. The first consists of persistently violent patients transferred from other hospitals, suffering from mental subnormality or personality disorder; they have a poorer prognosis than the second group, who are sent from Courts or prison because of single serious acts of violence often directed at a member of the family, and who suffer from a personality disorder or from schizophrenia. Some features of the two groups are compared and contrasted. There may be an increase in the proportion of patients in the first group being admitted to the State Hospital, and some implications of this trend are discussed.
Submitted on August 12, 1974
