Behavioral and prognostic judgments considered by experienced social workers to represent the components of discharge readiness formed the basis of a new rating scale. Subsequent ratings of 2,000 chronically hospitalized and recently admitted schizophrenic inpatients were used to establish the reliability and validity of the scale. The four Discharge Readiness Inventory (DRI) factors have been successfully used in research applications. A method for determining the probability of an individual patient's release is offered which utilizes a single score.