A retrospective controlled study of tranquillizers in long-stay patients.

Controlled studies of tranquillizers, both phenothiazine and rauwolfia derivatives, show improvement in those patients staying for long periods in hospital in such symptoms as motor restlessness, psychomotor agitation and excitement (Vaughan, Leiberman, and Cook, 1955), tension, delusions, hostility, and sociability (Wing, 1956). Few authors discuss the outcome in terms of the patients' discharge but American epidemiological studies (Brill and Patton, 1957; 1959), which 'were not computed specific for patients on drugs' (Kramer and Pollack, 1958), have suggested that tranquillizers have had a marked effect on the discharge of such patients, and the number discharged from hospital in England and Wales has also increased from 2,451 in 1954 to 4,170 in 1958 (Brooke, 1962). The following study examines the effect of tranquillizers on outcome, using controls, by a retrospective analysis of 276 matched pairs in each of which one patient was treated with tranquillizers.