Pathways to care and ethnicity. 1: Sample characteristics and compulsory admission. Report from the AESOP study

Many studies have found high levels of compulsory admission to psychiatric hospital in the UK among African-Caribbean and Black African patients with a psychotic illness.

To establish whether African-Caribbean and Black African ethnicity is associated with compulsory admission in an epidemiological sample of patients with a first episode of psychosis drawn from two UK centres.

All patients with a first episode of psychosis who made contact with psychiatric services over a 2-year period and were living in defined areas were included in the (AESOP) study. For this analysis we included all White British, other White, African-Caribbean and Black African patients from the AESOP sampling frame. Clinical, socio-demographic and pathways to care data were collected from patients, relatives and case notes.

African-Caribbean patients were significantly more likely to be compulsorily admitted than White British patients, as were Black African patients. African-Caribbean men were the most likely to be compulsorily admitted.

These findings suggest that factors are operating at or prior to first presentation to increase the risk of compulsory admission among African-Caribbean and Black African patients.