Ethnicity may influence treatment decisions and treatment quality in mental disorders. There have been suggestions of institutional racism in mental health services.

In this study we aimed to compare treatment quality between two groups: Greeks and immigrants and prove whether in our clinic, ethnicity is a significantly restricting factor of treatment quality. This study was conducted with all in-patients of Second Psychiatric Clinic University of Athens at Attikon Hospital between April and December 2008.

A total of 101 in-patients aged 16-56 years old, were studed. There were 73 Greeks and 18 immigrants. The diagnoses were schizofrenia:36(49,31%) for Greeks and 10(55,55%) for immigrants, and mood disorders:37(50,68%) for Greeks and 8(44,44%) for immigrants. We considered that treatment quality is composed of factors such as: days of hospitalization, number of psychiatric medicines used before-during and after hospitalization, doses of: conventional and atypical antipsychotics, SSRI'S, SNRI'S, and mood stabilizers used before-during and after hospitalization.

In this study ethnicity was not significantly associated with rates of polypharmacy during and after admition. There was a reduction of medication prescribed after admission in both groups. Immigrants had longer inpatient stays than Greek patients. We saw similar rates of antipsychotics used in both groups, but Greeks were more likely to take mood stabilizers and SSRI'S-SNRI'S. There were also higher rates of atypical antipsychotics than antipsychotics used in both groups.