ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Regional mandatory care is a special feature of psychiatric inpatient care in Germany. There is practically no systematic information on the changes in patient and disease characteristics a clinic is confronted with when adopting regional mandatory care. METHOD: Changes in inpatient characteristics were assessed by analyzing the whole set of the basic documentation inpatient data (BADO) of 2 years at Schlosspark-Klinik in Berlin (SPK) which switched to mandatory care in one regional sector in the year between the 2 years. We analyzed 863 vs. 1345 cases for the 2 years (without vs. with mandatory care). RESULTS: On average, patients were younger (M=50 vs. 48 y, p<0.05), fewer patients lived independently (97 vs. 89%, p<0.05), fewer were in partnership (42 vs. 29%, p<0.05), and fewer were employed (34 vs. 28%, p<0.05). The percentage of emergency cases (13 vs. 35%, p<0.001) and compulsory admissions (0.2 vs. 8.5%, p<0.001) was higher after adopting mandatory care. More patients terminated their treatment without their physician's consent (9 vs. 22%, p<0.001). There was a proportional increase of F1x ICD-10 diagnoses (11 vs. 22%) and F2x (14 vs. 20%), while there was a proportional decrease of F3x (38 vs. 30%) and F4x diagnoses (26 vs. 13%). CONCLUSION: After adoption of regional mandatory care, clinical structures need to be adjusted to deal with an increase in emergency cases and a larger number of patients with unfavorable sociodemographic and disease characteristics. To be able to do this, clinics should be equipped with the required organizational and financial means.