[Commitment of mentally ill and community psychiatry]

The question was investigated whether during the time of building up a psychiatric department in a General Hospital the situation changes in the Mental Hospital already in evident points e.g. the rate of compulsory admissions. Two years were compared: 1984 the year before the psychiatric department was established and 1988 the year with half of the number of planned beds built up in the psychiatric department. The number of admissions to the Mental Hospital was cut in half. The total sum of compulsory admissions to the Mental Hospital as well as to the psychiatric department was reduced from 255 (1984) to 148 (1988). Already in this time of building up the psychiatric department the compulsory admitted, the gerontopsychiatric patients and the foreigners were over proportional represented among the patients in the department compared to the Mental Hospital. The often presumed selection did not take place.