[Validation of data on commitments to mental hospitals. How many persons were committed annually?].
The purpose was to validate data on commitments from the Danish Psychiatric Case Register and police statistics. From 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1996, 25.8% (437 commitments) of all commitments in Denmark were investigated. In 347 (79.4%) cases the commitment was recorded as such both in the register and police statistics. Thirty (6.9%) commitments could not be found in the register. Sixty (13.7%) admissions were recorded as involuntary by the police but as voluntary in the register. Medical records were available in 53 of these 60 cases and showed that in 46 cases the police record was correct, i.e. the patient had been committed, and in seven cases the register was correct, i.e. the patient had been admitted voluntarily. This difference in correct registration was statistically significant (p < 0.02). The study concludes that police statistics seem more correct than the Psychiatric Case Register. This is mainly due to insufficient reporting by the psychiatric departments to te register. For register data to be used in administration, planning and research, this must be improved.
Arhus Universitetshospital, Psykiatrisk Hospital i Arhus, afdeling for psykiatrisk demografi, institut for psykiatrisk grundforskning.
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Poulsen
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Munk-Jørgensen
D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003718:Denmark; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D016495:Police; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards; D012189:Retrospective Studies