Attitude to discharge of mental patients at the Matsapha mental Hospital in Swaziland

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