Attitudes of Patients and Relatives to Compulsory Admission

Outcomes of involuntary hospital admission – a review

“…A total of 521 abstracts were considered, but only 23 papers met the inclusion criteria (25–47). These papers reported results of 18 studies, nine of which are prospective and nine retrospective.…”

“…In the remaining three studies, patients were interviewed after longer periods of time, i.e. between 4 months and 3 years after discharge (27, 28, 37) (details see Table 1).…”

“…There were nine low quality studies (26, 27, 31, 32, 34–37, 41) six medium quality studies (25, 28–30, 33, 47) and three high quality studies (39, 42, 46). Three studies scored 0, and no study had a score over 6.…”

“…Patients were also asked to assess, more specifically, their involuntary admission and whether such a compulsory intervention was justified in their case. A total of 39–75% of participants in different studies report retrospectively that it was right that they had been involuntarily admitted and treated, whilst 10–47% of the interviewees explicitly state that their involuntary admission was unjustified (27, 28–30, 32, 36, 37). Although no high quality studies address this issue, results from all investigations but one medium quality study (30) illustrate that the number of patients reporting positive views is higher than those holding negative attitudes.…”

“…Within the first 25 days after admission, 39–58% believe that their admission was correct (30, 32, 36). In interviews between 4 months and 3 years after admission, between 66% and 75% report positive views on their admission (27, 28, 37).…”