SOCIAL DATA IN PSYCHIATRIC CASUALTIES IN THE ARMED SERVICES

If five objective social factors (previous mental illness, broken homes, psychosis in the family, arrests and alcoholism) are studied in a group of military personnel who become psychotic it is significant that 72.2 per cent of them have one or more of these factors present and over 12.0 per cent have three to five of them (Table 7). Of the 175 men rejected by Selective Service, if 42 cases of mental deficiency, epilepsy, organic disease of the central nervous system are excluded, there will remain 133 so-called "functional" cases. Of these 133 (63.0 per cent) displayed one or more of the factors we have mentioned. Of the 613 men accepted only 147 (24.0 per cent) had one or more of the factors. It has been our experience that the use of the written questionnaire in obtaining even such simple data as we have described is of little value. Men deliberately tend to falsify in such a questionnaire, while a skilled interviewer whether he be a psychiatrist or not will be more likely to obtain correct information...