@article{ref1,
title="The decision making process including assessment of ethical principles in the commitment of police-referred, psychiatric patients",
journal="Medicine and law",
year="2002",
author="Alexius, Birgitta and Ajnefors, Lisa and Berg, Kerstin and Aberg-Wistedt, Anna",
volume="21",
number="1",
pages="107-119",
abstract="OBJECTIVES: to identify determinants for psychiatric commitment and analyse physicians' assessment of ethical principles concerning interested groups on the decision to commit a psychiatric patient. DESIGN: a prospective physician survey concerning commitment of patients brought by police to a psychiatric emergency unit. PATIENTS: Two hundred consecutive, police-conveyed patients. OUTCOME MEASURE: psychiatric commitment. PREDICTOR VARIABLES: psychiatric symptoms, diagnosis, risk for suicide/violence, ethical benefits/costs, physicians' gender, age and education. RESULTS: 56% of the patients were committed. Commitment correlated with a low score on the function assessment scale, patients' negative/ambivalent attitude towards hospitalisation, and diagnosis of psychosis or organic mental disorder. More specialists believed hospitalisation to fulfil patients' autonomy and benefit patients, families, and the community. CONCLUSIONS: dangerousness was often not identified as an indication for commitment. Assessments of commitment's ethical benefits for a patient compared to costs for violation of the patient's autonomy often gave more weight to the former.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0723-1393",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}