A Survey on The Current Status of Mental Health Act Application

Lee, Chang Gon; Kim, Jae Gyeong; Kim, E Yong

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study is to find out how the Mental Health Act(MHA) which was enacted in 1995 has been practiced in reality since it was enforced. This study focuses on the following provisions of this law; admission procedures in relation to the protection of patients' rights, discharge procedures in view of the human rights, and the conditions of the restriction of the patients' rights in hospital.
METHODS
The questionnaire on "the current state of the application of the MHA" was designed by the authors and was distributed by mail to 213 psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals which operate psychiatric closed wards as of 1999.
RESULTS
One hundred ten hospitals responded to the survey(51.6%) and 92.5% of the total admission to the closed ward were by 'admission by agreement of guardian'(article 24 of MHA). It was reported that a written agreement paper of guardian was filed in 98% and the official document(for the article 14 of rule for enforcement of MHA) for legal guardianship was filed in 85 % of these ad-missions respectively. However, the rate of filling the official document is actually below 85% accor-ding to the direct telephone confirmation. Other kind of admissions such as 'admission by the order of head of prefecture(article 25 of MHA) and 'emergency admission'(article 26 of MHA) were not performed except in several psychiatric hospitals. There cases no report regarding the patient's or guardian's appeal for the improvement of patient's right and better treatment and/or disagreement to involuntary admission. Sixty three percent of hospitals reported that the patients were free to use telephone, and 18.1% reported that the official forms to appeal human right violation of the institute were accessible to patients. However, the actual rates are suspected to be lower than the reports by the institutes. Petition for extension of hospital stay requested by the doctor in charge(article 24-3 of MHA) was submitted mostly by psychiatric hospitals, and its rejection rate was 3.7%.
CONCLUSION
In case of 'admissions by agreement of guardian', the required qualification for guardianship and the accompanying document to prove the legal guardianship should be amended to make it more realistic. For other kinds of admissions, such as 'emergency admission' and 'admission by order of head of prefecture', admission procedure should be modified to make it more efficient and practical. The rules and regulations for the human rights of psychiatric patients are not observed properly, which needs much improvement. As this study was done by a survey, it has limitation in understanding how the MHA is actually applied and therefore msufficient as data for the use of revising the Act. However, it appears that MHA is not properly observed with problems in applying MHA in practice. The information obtained from this study suggests that extensive study on national level should be done to find out how the MHA is practiced in reality with much discussion on improving the MHA on the basis of its finding.