Patient rejection scale: correlations with symptoms, social disability and number of rehospitalizations

The Patient Rejection Scale (RPS), which was developed to assess rejecting attitudes and feelings of relatives toward mental patients, was administered to a German sample of 44 family members or significant others living with first-admitted schizophrenics. Both at admission (t0) and 6 months later (t6), the PRS was significantly correlated with the number of rehospitalizations during the first 3 years after admission. In comparison, the association between PRS scores and different measures of psychopathology during the 2-year follow-up period was weak. Thus, rejecting attitudes of patients' relatives seem to imply a higher risk of relapse without substantial medication by symptoms. We suspect that relatives with rejecting attitudes towards a patient might tend to apply for readmission more easily than more accepting relatives.