Involuntary hospitalization and future coercive experiences - a retrospective study

Introduction: The involuntary hospitalization is required when an individual with severe mental illness poses serious danger to himself or others. Therefore, it is an intervention that profoundly affects one´s self-determination. The literature reports that patients being involuntarily admitted to hospital have a higher risk of involuntary readmissions. Objectives: To evaluate the influence of involuntary hospitalization on other future coercive hospital admissions. Methods: This is a retrospective study of a sample of 28 patients with a mean age of 46,9 years who underwent a psychiatric evaluation in the years of 2017 and 2018 at Coimbra Hospital and University Centre, Coimbra, Portugal. Several variables were collected, including the existence of past history of involuntary hospitalization and the need for further coercive hospitalization after the evaluation. All statistical data analyses were performed using IBM SPSS® version 26. Results: There was no statistically significant relationship between the history of involuntary hospitalization and subsequent compulsive hospital admissions (p > 0.05, α = 0.05). Conclusions: The results of our study do not corroborate data from previous research. Although we should take into account the small size of our sample, it is important to highlight the low rate of involuntary hospitalization in our country (3.2%) compared to other European countries (e.g. 30% in Sweden). The robust social support in the community, as well as our institution’s rehabilitation and psychotherapeutic programs focusing on insight, could be crucial contributors to these results.