Estimating Needs for Mental Health Care

The many significant changes that have come about in the mental health service of different countries in the last two decades have made administrative and political decision making in the distribution of care services a much more hazardous business. In the United States, for example, the number of occupied psychiatric beds fell from 550,000 in 1955 to 190,000 in 1977. England and Wales experienced similar if less pronounced changes, while in the Federal Republic of Germany the same trend became