[The open door at a psychiatric admission unit]

In spite of our determination to do so, we did not succeed in keeping an open door in a psychiatric admission unit treating patients of all kinds except during one third of the investigation period of 2.75 years duration. A total of 11.3% of all admissions prompted a transitory closing of the door, mostly for 3-4 days. A comparison with a control group shows an over-representation of young, schizophrenic, and organically damaged persons among these patients; in the case of the organics the closing of the ward was of substantially longer duration. The most frequent reason for closing the unit was the apprehension the patient would leave the hospital. However, as these patients were not dangerous towards themselves or against others, there may have been social rather than strictly medical grounds for this action. A short hospitalization time along with a high turn-over of the patients affect the possibility of influencing them on a relational level and make it thus more difficult to keep the door of an acute admission unit permanently open.