Effects of compulsory treatment orders on time to hospital readmission.

To evaluate the effect of compulsory community treatment orders on subsequent time out of the hospital, the authors studied the admission dates of psychotic patients who had repeated hospitalizations in Quebec, Canada, and divided each admission according to its time in relation to the index admission, during which the judicial order was obtained. The data were stratified by type of admission (early, preindex, index, or postindex), and the hypothesis tested was that the median time to readmission would be greatest for the index admission. The hypothesis was confirmed, supporting previous findings that judicial orders that mandate severely ill psychotic patients to undergo compulsory community treatment are associated with decreased time spent in the hospital and thus increased personal freedom.