[Effects of establishment of community psychiatry in Aalborg]

The aim of the present study was to illustrate the effects of community-based psychiatry. The catchment area was divided into three homogeneous districts, East, North and West. Teams were established on 1.9. 1990, 1.10.91 and 1.5.1992, respectively. Social, diagnostic and treatment related data were gathered from two cross-sectional investigations (I: February 1992 and II: February 1993) and from in-patients and out-patients files. In cross-section I a majority of long-term ward patients and hospital-based employment offers was found in the district where the community district team had not yet been established. In the district where the first community district team was established most primary target patients were treated. In cross-section II the hospital-based psychiatric service were more homogeneously distributed between the districts. The establishment of community-based psychiatric teams resulted in new referrals, and increasing numbers of patients becoming attached to the psychiatric teams, but crowding and use of compulsory measures in hospital also increased.