Reception order (RO) by a magistrate is a mode of involuntary admission provided under the Indian Mental Health Act of 1987. To the best of our knowledge there has been no evaluation of this provision in clinical practice. The present paper is a descriptive study through retrospective case-note review of patients admitted by way of RO to a tertiary care hospital in Goa. Compared with those admitted voluntarily, those admitted by RO tended to be single, middle aged (40–60 years old) and non-Goan; on average they had a significantly longer hospital stay than voluntarily admitted patients. Non-affective psychosis and substance use disorders were the more common diagnoses. While admissions by RO serve a useful role in bringing patients who are not under proper care into the mental healthcare system, they do not address the issue of aftercare.
ABSTRACT:It is not unusual for mentally ill person to wander away from their homes under the influence of their illness. Often such wandering patients are admitted to mental health facilities under various provision of the mental health act (MHA) as prevalent in the country such as the use of Reception Order (RO) under the Indian mental health act. Many a times because of long standing nature of illness, intellectual sub-normality, long duration of untreated psychosis and associated cognitive impairment these patients are unable to give adequate details of their residence especially those out of state and tend to languish for long periods in mental health care facilities. We present one such out of state patient with inadequate residential details who was relocated back to her community with the help of modern internet based information technology.
An agitated or suicidal patient brought by family or authorities at the A & E can be called a prototypical psychiatric emergency. In these individuals with myriad of psychiatric symptoms, which may have underlying organic etiologies and co-morbidities; final diagnosis should always be made after exclusion of such causes. At presentation identifying underlying medical condition masquerading as a psychiatric disorder can be difficult and challenging in such scenarios. We hereby present three cases where patients were admitted to a tertiary care set up with probable primary psychiatric syndromes; upon investigations were found to have medical-comorbidities; which had pivotal implication on their management.
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