Community adjustment of released token economy patients

The purpose of this study was to examine the community adjustment of token economy graduates and to compare their adjustment to that of a comparable group of patients released from other programs in the hospital. Community adjustment questionnaires were sent to the 98 graduates of the first 25 months of the token program and to a comparable group released from other parts of the hospital over the same time period. Recidivism over the 25- month period was significantly lower for the released token economy patients. Questionnaire data indicated that the released token economy patients were doing as well as, and possibly better than the released control patients in terms of community adjustment outside the hospital.