[Psychiatric hospitalizations after the June 27 1990 Law in a French department]

The law, edicted on the 27th june 1990, has introduced in France the without consent hospitalization, to replace the law of 30th june 1838 which was composed of confinements or psychiatric placings. On of the both new types of a without consent admission, called "by a third person request" hospitalization (HDT) containing a procedure called "usual" and another one called "situation emergency", appeared to us more and more used in our practice, particularly the "situation emergency" HDT. Therefore we compared on three periods, one before the law, the two others ones 3 and 6 years after it, the different types of psychiatric admissions in all of the seven psychiatric sectors of a french department. All the hospitalization's forms increase with the chronologic time in Côte d'Or. We notice too in this department an important increase of the HDT, but especially in the "situation emergency" ones, and this, with a statistically revealing way compared to the other types of admission. If this phenomena wasn't purely localized, which only the departmental commissions of psychiatric hospitalization, created by the 1990's law, can reveal by proceeding to an expected assessment of the law consequences, the legislator should fastly take this evolution into account.