The Daily Life of Ambulatory Chronic Mental Patients

The purpose of this research is to describe in greater detail than is typically done the daily life experiences of 11 ambulatory chronic mental patients and 11 nonpsychiatric controls. The subjects, although diagnostically heterogeneous, were representative of Dutch chronic mental patients. The Experience-Sampling Method was used to signal subjects randomly 10 times a day for 6 consecutive days to fill out self-rating forms assessing mental state and contextual information at the moment of the signal. Compliance was good. In time-allocation comparisons with nonpsychiatric subjects the patients were found to live relatively "normal" lives. As expected, their psychopathology was influenced by social environments such as being alone, at home, or in society at large. Contrary to other studies that stress the social isolation of such individuals, the chronic subjects reported feeling better away from home and among people than normal subjects. When alone, chronic patients reported daydreaming more and noted a tendency to drift away from thoughts about current activities. Mental state fluctuations and daily interactions, characteristic of this group, are examined in relation to theories of vulnerability and coping style of chronic mental patients, with an eye to individualized treatment applications.