Hospital socks, also known as psych ward socks or grippy socks, are socks given to patients at hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and nursing homes. The socks have non-skid features to prevent patients from slipping and falling. Patients can sometimes arrive at hospital by ambulance without footwear, and are typically provided with socks having a rubberised tread pattern to improve their grip strength. These non-slip socks are intended as alternative footwear to help prevent falls, but there is limited evidence for their usefulness.
Social media
Young people on social media commonly refer to hospital socks as "grippy socks". Slang terms for in-patient psychiatric hospitalization may include "grippy sock vacation", "grippy sock palace", "grippy sock jail", and "grippy sock hotel". Mental health professionals have expressed concern that such black humor may trivialize or romanticize the experience of psychiatric hospitalization. Tags for "grippy socks" are a popular mental health-related tag on TikTok, where the tags have several hundred million views. According to University of Strathclyde lecturer Susan McCool, the use of youth slang such as "grippy sock vacation" may "reflect society's ambivalence and stigmatising approach to mental health." McCool also notes that the use of such slang can be used to evade censorship by social media filters.