Reasons and mechanisms for admission of children and adolescents to a psychiatric hospital: the control circuit

Abstract

Important strides in psychiatric reform include the implementation of mental health services that replace the traditional psychiatric logic. However, admissions to psychiatric hospitals continue to occur, including children and adolescents. This study analyzed the reasons for admission to a psychiatric hospital from the institution's perspective and that of the hospitalized children and adolescents. This was a qualitative study with a hermeneutic-dialectic approach, based on a reading of the institutional documents, open interviews with eight adolescents, and participant observation. The results showed that the main alleged reason for admission reported by the psychiatric hospital was "aggressiveness", justified by the idea of "risk to self and others", while the children reported multiple reasons for their hospitalization, including drug use, minor scuffles, and misdemeanors. The analysis showed that the mechanism for admission to the psychiatric hospital involve, during anamnesis, defining an individual as deviating from social norms and, subsequently, assignment of a diagnosis to back the psychiatric institutionalization. It also showed that the backing and continuity of psychiatric hospitalizations occur in a circuit of control that is operated between different institutions for the deviants' custody. The study demonstrates that to avoid psychiatric hospitalizations, besides closing psychiatric hospitals, it is necessary to overcome the psychiatric paradigm, which in turn requires deinstitutionalization of practices and psychosocial care in open, community and substitutive mental health services.