Police Experiences of Committing People with Mental Illness to a Hospital

Abstract

To a large extent today, caring for people with mental illness takes place outside of institutional care. Sometimes, assistance from a special police group may be required to commit the patient to a hospital for continued psychiatric treatment. The aim of this study was to describe a group of police officers and their experiences of committing individuals with mental illness to the hospital for treatment. Two specialised commitment groups within the police were interviewed. A qualitative content analysis was used to identify topics of greater significance in the data. The interviews show that the informants desire greater cooperation with psychiatric care personnel and want to know more about mental illness and how to approach those with mental illness.