Controlled Follow-up of Patients Released by a Review Panel at One and Two Years after Separation^*

Abstract

Fifty patients released by the Review Panel are compared with a matched group of 50 patients discharged by the attending physician at one and at two years after separation from hospital. The two groups did not differ with respect to readmission rate or time spent in the community. At two years the physician-discharged patients were functioning better than the Panel-discharged patients in two of the seven areas of functioning; in the other five areas of functioning the adjustment of the two groups did not differ. The implications of these findings for the operation of the Review Panel and for the timely discharge of involuntary patients by attending physicians is discussed.

Social Workers' and Physicians' Experiences with Review Panels in British Columbia

“…A follow-up study on patients released by review panels was done by Ledwidge, Glackman, Paredes, Chen, Dhami, Hansen, and Higenbottam (1987). Patients who were released by review panels were not more likely to be readmitted to hospitals than patients who were discharged by physicians.…”

On the justification for civil commitment

“…Psychiatrists tend to ignore the negative effects of coercion and to be too optimistic about the potential bene®ts of treatment. Several studies have for instance shown that patients discharged against medical advice do not do any worse than those discharged as recommended (54,55). As long as so many questions concerning outcome and prognosis of treatment procedures are based more on discretion than facts, it is hard to conclude that civil commitment for treatment purposes can be justi®ed.…”