For many years, it has been an objective of national public health policy in Norway to reduce the number of compulsory hospitalisations under the Norwegian Mental Health Care Act. Uncertain data quality and inadequate reporting have made it difficult to obtain reliable measurements of hospitalisation trends. We have examined changes in psychiatric emergency admissions and compulsory hospitalisations under the Mental Health Care Act between 2000 and 2010 in the county of Østfold.
The material on which the study is based was gathered during two three-month periods – from 1 September to 30 November in the years 2000 and 2010 respectively. We compared emergency admissions in accordance with the national care quality indicator for compulsory hospitalisation in mental health care and examined whether there were changes in the diagnostic composition.
The number of emergency admissions per 1,000 population in Østfold increased from a rate of 7.05 in 2000 to 8.86 in 2010 (p