The Effect of the Implementation of the Rehabilitation of the Mentally Disabled in the Community Law in Israel on the Pattern of Psychiatric Hospitalizations A National Case Register Study

摘要

In 2001 the Rehabilitation of the Mentally Disabled in the Community Law was implemented in Israel, defining a basket of rehabilitation services to which the mentally disabled are entitled. The objectives of the present study were to examine the effect of being placed in a rehabilitation program after discharge from a psychiatric hospitalization on the probability of rehospitalization and on the length of the following hospitalization if it occurred. Anonymized data were extracted from two registers of the Ministry of Health: the Rehabilitation Register and the Israeli Psychiatric Case Register, whose data were merged. The study population consisted of all the discharges from a psychiatric hospital during 2001-8. There were three study groups (those admitted to hostels, supportive housing, and vocational rehabilitation) and two control groups (those referred to rehabilitation and did not implement the referral and a matched control group of potential candidates for rehabilitation). Kaplan-Meyer survival and Cox analysis were performed on the data.