The therapeutical implication of a strike in a psychiatric ward

This paper compares patient functioning during a maintenance workers' strike. Four criteria were used to assess change: 1) patients' functioning as evaluated by five independent judges on a questionnaire; 2) number of days out of the hospital; 3) number of days of closed intensive therapeutic ward hospitalization and 4) number of patients that underwent a major improvement during that period. A positive therapeutical effect in patients as a result of the strike has been found. This effect is thought to be due to the staff's higher expectations towards the patients, and not due to a need of the patients to restore a sense of balance in the threatened family-like system of the ward - as was believed in a previous study (1). The role of the staff in helping the patient to constructively cope with the strike is discussed.