Glossary / History of psychiatry
Voluntary admission
Admission to a psychiatric hospital on the basis of the patient's own consent. In Japan it first entered the law with the Mental Health Act of 1987.
Under the Mental Hygiene Act of 1950, admission was either by order of the governor or with the consent of a family member, and neither depended on the patient's own will. By the count of the lawyer Etsuro Totsuka, in the early 1980s more than 240,000 of about 300,000 in-patients were in hospital without their consent[1].
The Mental Health Act required hospital managers to make efforts to admit patients on the basis of their own consent[2]. British law had taken up the same idea in 1930[1].
Related terms
- Mental Health ActA Japanese law of 1987 that revised and renamed the Mental Hygiene Act. It introduced admission based on the patient's own consent (voluntary admission) and Psychiatric Review Boards.
- Mental Hygiene ActA Japanese law of 1950 that prohibited home confinement and required patients to be cared for in hospitals and other designated facilities. Revised in 1987, it became the Mental Health Act.
- Psychiatric Review BoardA body set up in each Japanese prefecture by the Mental Health Act of 1987, to which people admitted to psychiatric hospital against their will can apply for discharge or better treatment.