Sociodemographic and medical characteristics of involuntary psychiatric inpatients--retrospective study of five-year experience with Croatian Act on Mental Health.

The aim of this study was to analyze sociodemographic and medical characteristics of involuntary psychiatric inpatients treated during the five-year period of implementation of the Croatian Act on Mental Health. Data on involuntarily hospitalized patients according to the Croatian Act on Mental Health were singled out from the pool of inpatients treated at University Department of Psychiatry, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital from January 1, 1998 till December 31, 2002. Data were collected from medical records. Patients were diagnosed according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision criteria. The prevalence of involuntary hospitalization was 2%, including a comparative number of male and female patients. Most patients had secondary school, were living alone, were unmarried, widowed or divorced, and did not work at the time of hospitalization; however, most patients had some kind of health insurance. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis in involuntary psychiatric inpatients. In conclusion, scientific evaluation of involuntary hospitalization poses a major problem because of the many different factors that can influence the prevalence of involuntary hospitalization. Some of this factors are type of institution (psychiatric hospital or psychiatry department at a general hospital), organization of psychiatric care in the region, psychiatric morbidity and dynamics of changes in psychiatric morbidity in a specific region, public opinion about people with mental disorders, legal provisions on this very sensitive topic, etc.