[Utilization of psychiatric care]

The paper is an introduction to a series of articles summarizing hitherto assembled results in the research task P 12-335-806 DU 05 "Reflection of the biopsychosocial background of mental disorders on the consumption of health care" and deals with the first stage 01 "Improvement of the psychiatric information system". It gives an outline of the development of the psychiatric information system in Czechoslovakia, an account of the shortcomings of its present state and proposals for its improvement based on an automated psychiatric case register.