2Department of Psychiatry, Erasme Hospital, Universitè Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Anderlecht, Belgium ... Key words: community psychiatry - involuntary admission - mental health - mental illness - risk .... all the following circumstances are satisfied: emergency ... days, but can be extended based on the patient's illness.
Psychiatria Danubina, 2017; Vol. 29, No. 4, pp 490-496 https://doi.org/10.24869/psyd.2017.490 © Medicinska naklada - Zagreb, Croatia
Original paper
CORRELATES OF INVOLUNTARY ADMISSION: FINDINGS FROM AN ITALIAN INPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC UNIT Pierfrancesco Maria Balducci1, Francesco Bernardini2, Luca Pauselli3, Alfonso Tortorella1 & Michael T. Compton3 1
Department of Medicine, Section of Psychiatry, University of Perugia, Perugia, PG, Italy Department of Psychiatry, Erasme Hospital, Universitè Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Anderlecht, Belgium 3 Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, USA 2
received: 27.10.2016;
revised: 15.2.2017;
accepted: 27.4.2017
SUMMARY Background: Involuntary admission is challenging in terms of providing the most effective but least restrictive care in accordance with the country’s regulations. A better understanding of correlates of voluntary versus involuntary admission legal status is crucial to improve clinical decision-making and effectiveness of the overall mental health care system. Subjects and methods: We collected chart-review data pertaining to 848 patients, discharged between June 2011 and June 2014, from an Italian inpatient psychiatric unit. Diverse sociodemographic and clinical variables were collected. Bivariate analyses and binary logistic regression were performed to examine correlates of involuntary admission. Results: Bivariate analyses showed that involuntary status was related to: the reason for hospitalization, not being on psychiatric medications at admission, and being admitted from another inpatient ward (in particular, from the emergency department). The final regression model identified four main variables independently associated with legal status: being admitted for psychotic features, suicidal behavior, or impulsive behavior, and not being on medication at admission (Nagelkerke pseudo R2=0.15, p
