SynthesisEuropean archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience2008
Involuntary vs. voluntary hospital admission. A systematic literature review on outcome diversity.
Synthesis in European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 205 citations in OpenAlex.
- A qualitative meta-synthesis of service users' and carers' experiences of assessment and involuntary hospital admissions under mental health legislations: a five-year update.BMC psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Experiences with legally mandated treatment in patients with schizophrenia: A systematic review of qualitative studies.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2020Pooled it
- Psychiatric advance directives facilitated by peer workers among people with mental illness: economic evaluation of a randomized controlled trial (DAiP study).Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2023Trial
- Risk factors for readmission in schizophrenia patients following involuntary admission.PloS one · 2017Trial
- Did Nationwide Mental Health Insurance Reform in Israel Increase Access to Community-Based Care? : A Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study.Administration and policy in mental health · 2026Article
- Review
- Sex Difference in Risk and Protective Factors of State Psychiatric Hospital Readmissions among Non-forensic Psychiatric Patients in the United States in 2020-2023: Discrete-Time Hazard Models Applied To the National Mental Health Client-Level Data.Administration and policy in mental health · 2026Article
- Adolescent psychiatric hospitalization: a naturalistic observational study of statistical and clinical outcomes and moderating factors.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2025Article
- Area-level factors associated with variation in involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation across England: a cross-sectional, ecological study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Voices of Students in Crisis: Qualitative Interviews with College Students Hospitalized for Psychiatric Distress.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2025Article
- Determinants of compulsory admission in detainees with acute psychiatric symptoms in the French speaking counties of Switzerland.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- The benefits and harms of inpatient involuntary psychiatric treatment: a scoping review.Psychiatry, psychology, and law : an interdisciplinary journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · 2025Article
- Factors Associated with Hospital Readmission in a Population with a Diagnosis of Personality Disorder.Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2024Observational
- Needs Expressed in Peer-to-Peer Web-Based Interactions Among People With Depression and Anxiety Disorders Hospitalized in a Mental Health Facility: Mixed Methods Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Factors influencing the level of insight and treatment attitude: a cross-sectional study of 141 elderly patients of major depression in Guangzhou, China.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Beyond Patient Characteristics: A Narrative Review of Contextual Factors Influencing Involuntary Admissions in Mental Health Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- The relationship between area levels of involuntary psychiatric care and patient outcomes: a longitudinal national register study from Norway.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Geographical variation in compulsory hospitalisation - ethical challenges.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Suicide and death by other causes among patients with a severe mental illness: cohort study comparing risks among patients discharged from inpatient careEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2022Article
- Outcome of Voluntary vs Involuntary Admissions in Greece over 2 years after Discharge: A Cohort Study in the Psychiatric Hospital of Attica "Dafni".Community mental health journal · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article systematically reviews the literature on the outcome of acute hospitalization for adult general psychiatric patients admitted involuntarily as compared to patients admitted voluntarily. Inclusion and exclusion criteria qualified 41 out of 3,227 references found in Medline and PSYNDEXplus literature searches for this review. The authors independently rated these articles on six pre-defined indicators of research quality, carried out statistical comparisons ex-post facto where not reported, and computed for each adequate result the effect size index d for the comparison of means, and the Phi- or contingency coefficient for cross-tabulated data. Methodological quality of the studies, coming mostly from North American and European countries, showed significant variation and was higher concerning service-related than clinical or subjective outcomes. Main deficits appeared in sample size estimation, lack of clear follow-up time-points, and the absence of standardized instruments used to assess clinical outcomes. Length of stay, readmission risk, and risk of involuntary readmission were at least equal or greater for involuntary patients. Involuntary patients showed no increased mortality, but did have higher suicide rates than voluntary patients. Further, involuntary patients demonstrated lower levels of social functioning, and equal levels of general psychopathology and treatment compliance; they were more dissatisfied with treatment and more frequently felt that hospitalization was not justified. Future methodologically-sound studies exploring this topic should focus on patient populations not represented here. Further research should also clarify if the legal admission status is sufficiently valid for differentiating the outcome of acute hospitalization.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.