Involuntary admissions continue to be a controversial topic in psychiatry. However, it is well known that psychosocial rehabilitation treatment is more successful when the patient is involved in it improving awareness and adherence to treatment.

This study examined admissions patterns, including voluntary, involuntary, and partly voluntary admissions to a subacute psychiatric hospital.

This is a transversal study. All patients admitted for a medium-term psychiatric treatment since 01/06/2014 to 30/11/2015 were included. Patients's basic sociodemographic and clinical data were collected and compiled in a database. Descriptive statistics were performed using SPSS Software.

A total of 88 patients (52% men; mean age: 48.6 years) composed the sample. In 58% of cases, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were the diagnoses motivating the admission. Among 88 patients, 44 (50%) had voluntary admissions, 16 (18.2%) had involuntary admissions, 27 (30.7%) had partly voluntary admissions and just one patient (1.1%) had partly involuntary admissions. Seventy-one (80.1%) patients had voluntary admissions at discharge, and only one of them escape from hospital and did not finish the treatment.

In the short term involuntary hospitalization has benefits, however also can have adverse long-term consequences for the patient-therapist allegiance, breaking the psychotherapeutic relationship and making the patient abandon treatment. It's important to reassess the condition of admission and work with the patient the need to engage in treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.