Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hospital (inpatient) where they can be treated involuntarily. This treatment may involve the administration of psychoactive drugs, including involuntary administration. In many jurisdictions, people diagnosed with mental health disorders can also be forced to undergo treatment while in the community; this is sometimes referred to as outpatient commitment and shares legal processes with commitment.
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals or behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder and many others. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients. Others may specialize in the temporary or permanent containment of patients who need routine assistance, treatment, or a specialized and controlled environment due to a psychiatric disorder. Patients often choose voluntary commitment, but those whom psychiatrists believe to pose significant danger to themselves or others may be subject to involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment. Psychiatric hospitals may also be called psychiatric wards/units when they are a subunit of a regular hospital.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.
The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act regulates involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the state of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. The bipartisan bill was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank D. Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
The Ministry of Health is the Government of Ontario ministry responsible for administering the health care system in the Canadian province of Ontario.
Academic institution is an educational institution dedicated to education and research, which grants academic degrees. See also academy and university.
NYC Health + Hospitals, officially the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), operates the public hospitals and clinics in New York City as a public benefit corporation. As of 2021, HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States with $10.9 billion in annual revenues, serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents, providing services interpreted in more than 190 languages. HHC was created in 1969 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation. It is similar to a municipal agency, but has a board of directors. It operates eleven acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the poor and the working class. HHC's own MetroPlus Health Plan is one of the New York area's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance and is the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers.
The New York State Psychiatric Institute, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was established in 1895 as one of the first institutions in the United States to integrate teaching, research and therapeutic approaches to the care of patients with mental illnesses. In 1925, the Institute affiliated with Presbyterian Hospital, now NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, adding general hospital facilities to the institute's psychiatric services and research laboratories.
Spring Grove Hospital Center, formerly known as Spring Grove State Hospital, is a psychiatric hospital located in the Baltimore, Maryland, suburb of Catonsville.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is an executive agency of the Scottish Government tasked with managing prisons and Young Offender Institutions.
Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late 20th century, it led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals, as patients were increasingly cared for at home, in halfway houses and clinics, in regular hospitals, or not at all.
A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital, industrial plant, or other organization that dispenses medications, medical supplies, and in some cases even medical and dental treatment. In a traditional dispensary set-up, a pharmacist dispenses medication per the prescription or order form. The English term originated from the medieval Latin noun dispensaria and is cognate with the Latin verb dispensare, 'to distribute'.
Wakari Hospital is a hospital located in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions.
The Eastern Shore Hospital Center is a 76-bed psychiatric facility that is located in Cambridge, Maryland. It is owned and operated by the State of Maryland, under the Maryland Department of Health. Levels of care provided include acute and long-term inpatient psychiatric hospital services for adults aged 18 and older. The center also operates an on-site 16-bed residential Assisted Living Program that is known as Stepping Stone at Manokin. The 40-bed Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center, a psychiatric hospital that was located in Chestertown, and the Eastern Shore Hospital Center were jointly administered for a number of years. The Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center was closed in March 2010.
Guam Memorial Hospital is located in Tamuning, Guam and is the only public hospital serving the island of Guam. The hospital has 161 licensed acute care beds, plus 40 beds at its off-site, long-term care Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF).
The lunatic asylum or insane asylum was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society. In other words, abuse of psychiatry is the deliberate action of having citizens psychiatrically diagnosed who need neither psychiatric restraint nor psychiatric treatment. Psychiatrists have been involved in human rights abuses in states across the world when the definitions of mental disease were expanded to include political disobedience. As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances. Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined and abused in psychiatric hospitals.
A Municipal hospital is a hospital under the control of a local government, as opposed to those run commercially, by some sort of charitable organisation, or by national or state governments.
