system of hospital registration, it is possible that schedules were not sent
to all private hospitals. Furthermore, not all of the hospitals to which
schedules were sent returned them. For 1945, schedules were returned by
95 of the 111 county and city hospitals to which they were sent, and by 192
of the 267 private hospitals receiving schedules. However, the probability
that a hospital will be listed in available sources of information on the
number of hospitals of a given type, and the probability that it will return
schedules, tend to vary directly with its size. Hence, the statistics for county,
city, and private hospitals appear to be reasonably complete with respect
to the total number of patients involved.
Psychiatric wards of general hospitals.—The collection of statistics for
the psychiatric wards of general hospitals on an annual basis began in 1939, although these data were collected in the decennial censuses of 1923 and 1933. The problems of obtaining complete coverage for this group of hospitals are similar to those which arise in the case of county and private
hospitals. For 1945, schedules were returned by 114 of the 125 hospitals to
which they were sent. Between 1942 and 1945, as indicated in the body of
the text, statistics for the general and station hospitals operated by the
armed forces have been excluded. Although a majority of these hospitals are
new, several of them, such as Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D. C,
and Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, California, have been included among general hospitals in previous years. It is hoped that it will be possible to include data for hospitals of this type in the report for 1946.
Number of hospitals reporting: 1936 to 1945.—The number of hospitals of each type reporting in each year between 1936 and 1945 is indicated in table A.
Table A.—Hospitals Reporting Data on Mental Patients, by Type of Hospital and Control: 1936 to 1945
!Year !HOSPITALS FOR THE TEMPORARY CARE OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT !HOSPITALS FOR THE PERMANENT CARE OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS |- !State !Veterans !County and city !Private !Psychopathic !General |- |1945||190||33||95||192||9||114 |- |1944||190||31||94||187||9||106 |- |1943||186||31||75||186||8||105 |- |1942||185||28||75||176||6||97 |- |1941||180||27||92||182||7||95 |- |1940||178||26||80||187||7||71 |- |1939||180||27||100||198||7||75 |- |1938||178||26||67||193||7||-- |- |1937||176||26||65||211||7||-- |- |1936||178||25||67||199||8||-- |}
Number of hospitals reporting administrative statistics.
For 1945, in formation on overcrowding was not received from three State hospitals and one veterans' hospital and for 1942 and 1943, from two State hospitals. Other wise, the numbers of State, veterans', and psychopathic hospitals reporting this item are identical with the numbers presented in table A for the years
1943 to 1945.
The number of State hospitals reporting data on administrative staff was 184 in 1945, 182 in 1944, and 175 in 1943. The corresponding numbers for veterans' hospitals were 32, 31, and 31, respectively. Of the psychopathic hospitals, eight reported data on administrative staff in each of the three years covered in this report.
