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"No-commitment week": a feasibility study.

Abstract

To determine the extent to which involuntary hospitalization is overused, a "No-Commitment Week" was set aside, during which emergency room psychiatrists committed only patients in absolute need of hospitalization. Compared with the week before and the week after, there was no significant difference in the number of patients committed during No-Commitment Week. The authors propose replication of the study on a larger scale but suggest that decisions about involuntary hospitalization in public mental hospitals are the result of societal attitudes, which will be subject to change as long as society itself continues to change.

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BibTeXRIS

I M Zwerling, H R Conte, R Plutchik, T B Karasu. 1978. "No-commitment week": a feasibility study.. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.135.10.1198

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National survey of current arrangements for diversion from custody in England and Wales.

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Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders

[Ethics in psychiatry].

In psychiatry there are two major problem areas where ethical questions are of greatest importance. On one hand these are problems arising from commitment to an institution, e.g. forced hospitalisation and forced treatment. Swiss civil law requires in articles 397a to f that such patients may appeal to a judicial court. When this court is a commission comprised of an attorney and of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic specialists, it is of greatest importance that the patient himself be heard by the attorney and not just by a member of the commission and that this attorney also takes into account statements of relatives, as an incompetent patient may say things that are inconsistent with actual facts. As existing or planned hospitalization laws apply mainly to acutely ill patients who are dangerous to themselves or to others, the treatment of chronically ill psychiatric patients cannot be guaranteed. Thus conflicts of conscience arise, since physicians are required to provide medical aid; therefore if such aid is not given or if it is refused, a physician can be sued for inflicting heavy injury. Hence there is an urgent need for judicial measures that guarantee also the treatment of the chronically ill who, like all patients, have a right to be treated. A second problem area is represented by the ethical commissions that decide which scientific investigations may be performed on psychiatric patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders