ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 8

The Impact of a Change in Commitment Procedures on the Character of Involuntary Psychiatric Patients
Ratner, CH
Graduate student, New York University, GA

Levinson, RM
Associate professor of public health and adjunct professor of sociology, Emory University School of Medicine, GA

Briggs, RP
Assistant professor of sociology, University of Hartford, CT

(Received 8 June 1983; accepted 15 August 1983)

Abstract

The statutory requirements for involuntary civil psychiatric confinement have become increasingly restrictive. In the jurisdiction under investigation, patients were originally admitted under an Order to Apprehend (OTA) procedure simply on the petition of two affiants who indicated the patient was in need of care. A newly elected judge instituted changes requiring affiants to claim the subject was “dangerous” to self or others and asking for a clinical assessment and recommendation before signing the petitioned request for involuntary confinement. It might be expected that the more restrictive procedures would have produced a population of more assaultive patients. A study of petitions signed under in the earlier (N = 133) and later, more restrictive (N = 218) procedures indicated that the proportion of assaultive or dangerous patients was virtually identical. Further investigation, using hospital data an OTA patients from this area in both time periods, suggested that while patients were not more assaultive, they appeared to be more seriously ill or psychiatrically impaired. Apparently, movement to a dangerousness standard that allows clinical discretion in interpreting its presence may result in involuntary commitments for more seriously ill, although not necessarily more assaultive, patients.

Keywords:
psychiatry, jurisprudence, mental illness

Paper ID: JFS11705J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS11705J
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