The aims of this study were to identify and trace all schizophrenic patients discharged from in-patient and day-patient psychiatric services in Harrow between 1 January 1975 and 1 January 1985, to examine the patients in terms of their mental state, cognitive functioning, extrapyramidal function and social disability, and to relate their current status in those terms to demographic, historical and treatment variables. The data collection was conducted between 1 February 1987 and 1 January 1990. The project was devised against the background of developing community care policies for psychiatric patients. In the UK, policies of closure of the mental hospitals have been advocated for a considerable time (Tooth & Brooke, 1961). In the US the plan of closing the mental hospitals and replacing in-patient care with care in the community was partially adopted (Scharfstein, 1978; Fink & Weinstein, 1979; Winslow, 1979). In Italy it was carried out in a much more complete way, at least in some areas (Jones & Poletti, 1985, 1986), but problems appear to have arisen in both of these countries (Donovan, 1982; Papeschi, 1985).

The social disadvantages for schizophrenic patients in terms of unemployment, impaired relationships, social isolation and downward social drift have been well described (Cooper, 1961; Goldberg & Morrison, 1963; Cheadle et al, 1978; Taylor, 1987). The problems experienced by their caring relatives have been shown to be substantial (Stevens, 1972; National Schizophrenia Fellowship, 1979; Creer et al, 1982). It is important to examine these issues in a large representative sample, and for this reason the social outcome in the 532 patients who form the subjects of the Harrow study of the disabilities and circumstances of schizophrenic patients was examined in some detail.

Persisting positive symptoms largely unresponsive to treatment (Tuma & May, 1979; Macmillan et al, 1986; May et al, 1989) occur in about 7% of patients with schizophrenia but lesser degrees of treatment resistance are common (Hogarty, 1988; Johnstone, 1990) and problems of recurrence of positive symptoms and deterioration of negative symptoms are well known (Johnstone, 1990). Schizophrenic patients have also been found to have persisting non-psychotic symptoms, particularly depression (Cheadle et al, 1978). Disorders of movement in relation to schizophrenia and their treatment have been found to be disabling in a few patients and to cause lesser problems for many (Kane et al, 1985). The assessment of the mental state and of clinical evidence of movement disorder in the patients who form the subjects of the Harrow study was therefore clearly of interest, as it is rarely possible to examine these issues in a large, unselected sample.

It has become increasingly apparent that schizophrenic patients can suffer from many cognitive deficits (Hemsley, 1982). These include a decline in IQ (Nelson et al, 1990), loss of concentration (Garmezy, 1978), and various ‘executive’ difficulties similar to those observed in patients with frontal lobe lesions (Morice, 1990). The availability of a large, population-based sample of schizophrenic patients in the Harrow study provided the opportunity to examine the prevalence of these impairments and to relate them to the signs and symptoms of the disorder.

High mortality rates among schizophrenic patients from infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, pneumonia and gastro-enteritis, reported for periods up to the 1940s were shown not to be specific for schizophrenia, but were characteristic of the mental hospital population as a whole (Alstrom, 1942). Studies covering more recent times confirm the decline and virtual disappearance of mortality from tuberculosis (Baldwin, 1979), but an extensive literature continues to emphasise the relatively high mortality of the mentally ill, including those defined as schizophrenic (Innes & Millar, 1970; Tsuang & Woolson, 1977), and more recent record linkage studies (Herrman et al, 1983; Allebeck & Wistedt, 1986) have continued to show an excess of both natural and unnatural deaths. Long follow-up studies of reasonably large groups of well documented cases are relatively uncommon in this area and therefore the 532 cases in the Harrow study were carefully followed up from the point of view of the occurrence and cause of death.

As part of a study of the contribution of institution-alisation to the disabilities of schizophrenia (Johnstone et al, 1985), all patients fulfilling the St Louis criteria (Feighner et al, 1972) for schizophrenia and discharged from Shenley Hospital between 1 January 1970 and 1 January 1975 were followed up five to nine years later (Johnstone et al, 1981, 1984). Until Northwick Park Psychiatric Unit opened in 1975, psychiatric facilities for Harrow patients were all in Shenley Hospital. In the follow-up study the patients were examined in detail and an account of their social circumstances and functioning was obtained. It was considered that the study provided an opportunity to examine the success of community care in a group of schizophrenic patients who left hospital before very active policies of discharge for such patients had been developed. The results had both positive and negative aspects. For example, 18% of the patients examined had recovered to the extent that they had no significant symptoms and appeared to function satisfactorily, but more than 50% had definite psychotic features. No patients and few relatives sought a return to in-patient care, but severe emotional, social and financial difficulties were commonplace. Moreover, 27% of the sample had no contact with the medical or social services.

Although there has been no truly satisfactory study of the association between antisocial behaviour and psychosis, a variety of sources suggest a greater than chance association between the two (Taylor, 1987), and in particular there is evidence of a substantial increase in violent behaviour in association with schizophrenia (Taylor & Gunn, 1984). There is also evidence of the possibility of over-representation of mentally ill people in arrest statistics, because of an increase in police concern (Teplin, 1985; Taylor, 1987). Studies in this area may concern rates of psychiatric disorder among persons in judicial circumstances (e.g. Taylor & Gunn, 1984), but the Harrow study provided an opportunity of examining the extent and nature of behaviour leading to police contact in a large, unselected sample of schizophrenic patients followed up for up to 13 years.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the sociocultural aspects of psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia (World Health Organization, 1975; Sartorius et al, 1986). This has extended from multicentre international studies of prevalence, through national incidence or phenomenological studies in different ethnic groups (Cochrane, 1977; Teggin et al, 1985), to outcome assessments in different cultures (Sartorius et al, 1986, 1987).

This report concerns 532 patients with schizophrenia. Many items of information have been recorded and the results have been quickly drawn together for publication. It is likely that more detailed analyses of the data will be conducted in time, but this publication reports the central facts derived from this extensive investigation. They can be simply stated. The disorder remains very common. Five hundred and thirty-two individuals with schizophrenia as defined by the Feighner criteria were discharged from Harrow services over 10 years. It was possible to trace the great majority of these patients. In many cases the illness was clearly associated with recurrent or persistent problems. The mean number of admissions required was 5.37 (Fig. 1) and on average patients spent 13.7 of the 120 months between 1975 and 1985 in hospital (Fig. 2).