title: French lay people's views regarding the acceptability of involuntary hospitalization of patients suffering from psychiatric illness.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To understand how lay people and health professionals in France judge the acceptability of hospitalizing a psychiatric patient against his will.
  
  
  METHODS
  123 lay people, 20 nurses, 5 psychologists, and 6 physicians judged the acceptability of involuntary hospitalization in each of 36 scenarios consisting of all combination of 4 factors: patient's adherence to treatment (agrees to take his medications or not); risk of suicide (none, immediate, multiple past attempts); risk of harming others (none, immediate, history of violence against others); attitude of patient's family (favorable to involuntary hospitalization or not). The judgment data were subjected to cluster analysis and subsequently to analysis of variance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  4 clusters were identified and labeled according to the factors that affected judgments: Never Favorable (7 participants, with mean acceptability judgment of 1.30 on a scale of 0-10); Threat to Others (35, with mean judgment of 8.68 when risk high, 2.94 when risk low), Threat to Others or Self and Adherence (88, with mean judgment of 6.89), and Always Favorable (24, with mean judgment of 8.41).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  95% of participants agreed that involuntary hospitalization is acceptable under certain conditions, especially - in accordance with French law - when the patient presents a risk to others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Mirail University, 5, Allées Antonio-Machado, F-31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. guedj@univ-tlse2.fr
authors.forename: Myriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guedj
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Sorum
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mullet
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006708:Homicide / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult