The psychopathology of everyday art: a quantitative Study - World ...

paintings was not reliable enough to relate to it; all were inpatients, but some
were in hospital for one or two days only and there may have been other
influences, especially in the substance abuse group.
4. Chronicity of patients: There were three variables to determine chronicity: new
admission, previous admissions, and whether the patient had ever been sectioned.
It was initially decided to examine and compare work in both acute and chronic
stages of illness. The advantage of examining work by patients in acute stages
of illness, as well as the traditional chronic groups, is the comparison of indicators
which have been identified as distinguishing psychiatric illness that may be due
to the institutional environment. However, patients were difficult to classify,
even as inpatients, as their status fluctuated. Most of the wards which
participated actually contained patients with chronic illnesses, especially
schizophrenia. However, in three out of four wards which were identified
initially as dealing with acute illnesses (drug unit, rehabilitation unit, and
community mental health unit) casenotes revealed that the majority of frequent
attenders (3 paintings or more) had previous admissions and few were new to the
hospital. Another acute unit, for traumatic brain injury was excluded. This
variable was discarded.
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