In the UK, Black and minority ethnic (BME) patients have been reported to be disproportionately detained under the Mental Health Act.

Systematic review of all UK literature on ethnicity and detention with meta-analysis of detention rates for BME patients, to determine range of explanatory hypotheses and examine the evidence for these hypotheses

Electronic data bases searched for all date-based studies (1984-2005). Meta-analyses performed where data available. Explanations offered for any excess categorised and evidence examined.

49 studies identified, 19 included in meta-analyses. Compared with White patients, Blacks were 3.83 times, BME patients 3.35 times and Asians 2.06 times more likely to be detained. Racial stereotyping and discrimination against BME patients was the most often cited explanation (53% studies); followed by alienation and mistrust of psychiatric services (28%); higher rates of psychosis (22%); delay in help seeking (18%); and misdiagnosis/ under recognition of illness (16%). There was no primary evidence provided by any study to confirm any of these explanations, while some papers presented data that contradicted these explanations.

BME patients experience higher rates of detention under the MHA than White patients. Available explanations offered for this excess are largely unsupported. Explanations such as ‘institutional racism’ in psychiatry neither accurately account for the excess, nor help find ways of reducing detention rates.