Psychosocial characteristics of psychiatric inpatients at admissions and discharge: The Menninger Clinic Adult Outcomes Project

The authors present a first look at the data from The Menninger Clinic Adult Outcomes Project. They provide descriptive data from 443 patients admitted to the Clinic between April 2008 and May 2009. Patients show significant improvement on a range of standardized measures from admission to discharge (effect sizes range from moderate to large, 0.31 to 1.44), and there are some differences among clinical programs within the hospital in the extent of change on some scales. A comparison of patients who did and did not complete discharge assessments showed minimal differences between groups on admissions variables. These results attest to the substantial impact of relatively long-term intensive inpatient treatment on improving clinical symptoms and functioning, but further studies are needed to determine the trajectory of change in the hospital and, most importantly, at follow-up.