There's no simple answer to this question really.
It very much depends on the person and what they suffer from.
I spent years at a time in hospital and I don't really think that it helped that much, all it did was make me instituationalised and struggle to function in 'real life' because I was so accustomed to hospital. This also means I missed out on nearly all my education, I took no exams and have never had a paid job.
In my opinion, lots of work outside of hospital, therapy etc. along with short hospital stays if needed, would have been more helpful than just years in hospital, when I know the therapy I did could have been done in the community.
It's not as simple as staying in hospital until you're ready to reintegrate back into work or study, because if you've been in hospital for a year or so, going back home takes a lot of adjustment in itself, it's not an easy thing to do.
In England, I believe short term stays are more common, maybe a few weeks or months. There are specialist units and secure units which are more long stay, I knew some ladies in the medium secure that had been in there for 10+ years and didn't actually want to leave because they were so insitutionalised.
There are pros and cons to long term stays and as I said before, it very much depends on the person and what kind of things they are suffering from.
Have you been offered/looked into any therapy or anything you can do outside of hospital?
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