A pilot survey of the ecological factors connected with 100 first admissions to the Barbados Mental Hospital

A scheme for investigating the aetiological factors in mental illness is presented. Both hereditary and environmental factors are included and the main heading for the enquiry are as follows : age, colour, religion, address, intelligence, hereditary factors, and pure stress factors such as work, social, home and financial conditions, and the amount of alcohol drunk. Correlation appears to be shown between religion and admission rates and also between density of population and admission rates. The hereditary factor appears to be significant as 48 percent of admissions were shown to have close relatives mentally ill, but no control group has yet been found. Very often a direct comparison can be made between the survey findings at the hospital and the census findings for the whole island, hence obiviating the need for a control group (AU)

Characteristics of first admissions to a mental hospital: a preliminary report

330 first admissions to the Mental Hospital were compared with 330 controls taken from admissions to the General Hospital. There was a significant difference between the admissions and controls in the number of relatives found to be or have been mentally ill. There was little evidence to suggest that environmental factors were a contributory cause to the finding. (AU)