Data collected from 6043 psychiatric in-patient records were analysed to assess the impact of a strike at a mental hospital on in-patient services in general hospital psychiatric units in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada. As a whole, during the strike general hospital units showed an increase in the number of involuntary admissions, the number of prior mental hospital admissions of patients, and indications of violent or suicidal behaviour; and a decrease in the occupational status of patients admitted and the prescription of minor tranquillizers. There was also evidence of considerable variation between general hospitals in the extent to which their admission pattern changed during the strike and the permanence of some of the strike effects. The data indicate that all patients showing violent or suicidal behaviour who would normally have been admitted to the mental hospital were treated in the general hospital units during the strike. On the other hand, a large number of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, personality disorder or mental retardation, who normally would have been admitted to the mental hospital, apparently went without hospitalization during the strike. A substantial proportion of this latter group would usually have been admitted involuntarily.

Behaviour disturbance was investigated in mentally handicapped adults who were living in hospital or at home. The first part of the study describes an empirically derived typology of disturbed behaviour patterns and gives the details of a scale by means of which behaviour disturbance can be quantified along six dimensions: aggression, mood disturbance, communicativeness, antisocial conduct, idiosyncratic mannerisms, and self-injury. The second part of the study used the scale in a longitudinal study of behavioural disturbance. Different forms of disturbed behaviour exhibited different kinds of longitudinal stability, and the long-term changes in one aspect of disturbance depended on subjects' other disturbance scores.

Depression following withdrawal from long- or short-term use of benzodiazepines is not uncommon, yet it is under-reported in the benzodiazepine withdrawal literature. Four cases of depressive illness supervening during benzodiazepine withdrawal are reported. Depression may, it is suggested, be an integral part of the benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome.