In Canada, Black Patients More Likely to Receive Coercive Treatment, Study Finds

Black people of Caribbean or African descent with first-episode psychosis in Canada were more likely to be coercively referred for treatment and to receive coercive psychiatric services compared with patients of other races and ethnicities, according to astudy published Tuesday inPsychiatric Services in Advance.“Medical coercion refers to the use of force, threats, or other means to gain compliance from another person who is deemed an imminent danger to themselves or others,” wrote Sommer Knight, M.Sc., and G. Eric Jarvis, M.D., M.Sc., of McGill University in Montreal and colleagues. In Canada, the aut hors continued, “certain groups, particularly ethnic minority groups of African or Caribbean descent, are at greater risk for involuntary admission; this discriminatory treatment may be due to excessive application of the ‘danger’ criterion for psychiatric commitment among members of these gro ups.”Knight, Jarvis, and colleagues analyzed data from 208 patients with first-episode psychosis who were referred to the First Episode Psychosis Program in the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry of the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. The participants were between the ages of 16 and 30; had been taking antipsychotic medications for less than 30 days; and had exhibited psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, or paranoid ideation for more than three consecutive days. Participants ’ ethnic and racial identifies were included in their charts, and whe...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: black Canada first-episode psychosis medical coercion non-Black minority Psychiatric Services in Advance racism white Source Type: research