Objective: As the provision for the involuntary admission to hospital of alcoholics is likely to be discarded in a new Irish Mental Health Act, the characteristics of patients committed under the 1945 Irish Mental Treatment Act were explored and compared with those alcoholics admitted voluntarily.

Method: All alcoholics admitted compulsorily from 1989-1992 to a general psychiatrichospital in Dublin were compared retrospectively with voluntarily admitted alcoholics. Data was taken from case notes.

Results: Results showed that patients admitted compulsorily were older (t = 3.74, df = 62, p < 0.001) and had more physical complications (X2 = 8.4, df = 1, p < 0.004) than those admitted voluntarily. Although results did not reach a statistically significant level, there were proportionately more females in the compulsorily admitted group compared with the voluntary group. The outcome of admission overall was better in those admitted voluntarily, although this was influenced both by length of stay and previous admissions for treatment of alcohol dependence. One particularly interesting finding, regardless of admission category, was that duration of admission was statistically significantly longer for women when compared with men.

Conclusions: Compulsory admission of alcoholics to a psychiatric hospital for very brief periods was not shown to be strikingly helpful, but this study cannot decide whether or not longer periods of compulsory admission would be valuable.