Social Dysfunctioning as a Measure of Severity of Psychiatric Illness

A study was carried out to examine the validity of social dysfunctioning as a measure of severity of illness. Modified version of KAS, R2 inventory was used to measure social functioning. Since there can be no absolute measure of severity of psychiatric illness, the validity was tested through indirect means. It was decided that if the scores on social dysfunctioning were higher amongst the mentally ill compared to normals, higher in Psychotics compared to Neurotics and higher in those assessed by a relative as well as the Consultant Pyshciatrist to be more severely ill than those judged as less severely ill, the validity of social dysfunctioning as a measure of severity of Psychiatric illness would stand established. This was indeed found to be the case in the study which was carried out with 200 consecutive patients from a psychiatric out-patient department and their matched normal controls.