To see if the sane can be distinguished from the insane
To be admitted to psychiatric wards as a patient to get more understanding of patients psychiatric experiences institutionalised
Sample:
Pseudo patients:
8 pseudo patients
1 graduate student in 20s, (remaining were older and more established) 3 psychologists, a paediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter and a housewife.
3 women, 5 men
Hospitals
similarly varied setting to generalise finding.
12 hospitals in sample located in 5 different states in east and west coast
Some new some old and shabby
Some had good staff/ patient ratio, some understaffed
Only one strictly private private hospital others were supported by state or federal funds in one instance university funds
Procedure 1
Admission
after making appointment via phone pseudo patient arrived complaining about hearing voices, claimed that voices were unclear saying words like “empty” “hollow” and “thud” voices were unfamiliar and same sex as the pseudo patients.
Choice of symptoms was determined by a single report of existential psychosis in literature.
Procedure
Beyond alleging symptoms and fake name, vocation and employment no further alterations of persons history or circumstances were made.
Significant events of the pseudo patients life history were accurate of how they actually occurred. Frustrations and upsets were described as they were along with joys and satisfactions
After admission
Immediately after admission pseudo patients stopped showing any symptoms of abnormality in some cases of mild anxiety due to the expectation that getting admitted would be more of a procedure
They shared fear of being found out and exposed, fears of what would happen on psychiatric wards
Pseudo patients spoke to staff as he would normally and attempted to engage other in conversation due to lack of activity on ward
Pseudo patients responded to questioning about how they were feeling by staff as fine and no longer experiencing symptoms, responded to requests for medication
Results
Aim 1 could pseudo patients be detected ??
diagnosis with 12 admissions: 11 schizophrenics, 1 manic depressive psychosis
Real patients who suspected sanity 35/118
Time to be released 7-52 (19 days average)
Mini experiment: 4% of pseudo patients received answer from psychiatrist 0.5 received answers from nurse in comparison to 78% of comparison study
Procedure 2 : follow up experiment
doubted such error to occur staff were informed that at some time during 3 moths one or more pseudo patients would attempt to be admitted into hospital
Each staff member was asked to rate each patient who presented themselves the likeliness of being a pseudo patient 10 point scale 1 being high confidence of pseudo patient