ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2008
Mental health laws that require dangerousness for involuntary admission may delay the initial treatment of schizophrenia.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and Risk Factors of Violence by Psychiatric Acute Inpatients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Did the introduction of 'dangerousness' and 'risk of harm' criteria in mental health laws increase the incidence of suicide in the United States of America?Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2009Pooled it
- Impact of the 2017 mental health act revision on suicide attempts: evidence from emergency department data in Korea.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Functional, Contextual, and Interventional Drivers of Formal Coercion in Acute Mental Health Units: A Feature Analysis.International journal of mental health nursing · 2026Article
- Ethical and Clinical Challenges in Involuntary Hospitalization for First-Break Psychosis.Cureus · 2024Article
- Liberty or life: mental health care in Australia.CNS spectrums · 2024Review
- Beyond Patient Characteristics: A Narrative Review of Contextual Factors Influencing Involuntary Admissions in Mental Health Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Approval of Coercion in Psychiatry in Public Perception and the Role of Stigmatization.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Commentary: The Implementation of China's Mental Health Law-Defined Risk Criteria for Involuntary Admission: A National Cross-Sectional Study of Involuntarily Hospitalized Patients.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Article
- Approaches to involuntary admission of the mentally ill in the People's Republic of China: changes in legislation from 2002 to 2012.The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law · 2015Review
- Article
- Alcohol abuse as the strongest risk factor for violent offending in patients with paranoid schizophrenia.Croatian medical journal · 2014Article
- Operationalizing the involuntary treatment regulations of China's new mental health law.Shanghai archives of psychiatry · 2013Article
- Civil commitment law, mental health services, and US homicide rates.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionA long duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is associated with a worse prognosis, an increased risk of suicide and may be linked to serious violence. Mental health laws that require patients to be dangerous to themselves or to others before they can receive involuntary psychiatric treatment may make it more difficult to treat patients in their first episode of psychosis.
methodsThe mean and median DUP reported in studies of schizophrenia related psychoses were examined. A comparison was made between the DUP reported from jurisdictions that had an obligatory dangerousness criterion (ODC) and those with other criteria for involuntary treatment.
resultsThe average mean DUP in samples from jurisdictions with an ODC was 79.5 weeks, but was only 55.6 weeks in those jurisdictions that did not have an ODC (P < 0.007).
conclusionsMental health laws that require the patient to be assessed as dangerous before they can receive involuntary treatment are associated with significantly longer DUP. As reducing DUP is an intervention that can improve the prognosis of schizophrenia, this finding suggests that mental health laws should be amended to allow treatment on grounds other than dangerousness, at least in the crucial first episode of psychosis.
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