Psychiatric Review Board
A body set up in each Japanese prefecture by the Mental Health Act of 1987, to which people admitted to psychiatric hospital against their will can apply for discharge or better treatment.
The earlier Mental Hygiene Act gave people admitted compulsorily no way to have their case reviewed by an outside body. The mission of the International Commission of Jurists and others that visited Japan in 1985 also found no legal protection for patients either at admission or during their stay[1][2].
The Mental Health Act set up a Psychiatric Review Board in each prefecture[3]. A person admitted against their will can ask the governor for discharge or for better treatment; the board reviews the request and advises the governor. Hospital managers must inform patients of this right in writing[2].
Related terms
- Mental Health ActA Japanese law of 1987 that revised and renamed the Mental Hygiene Act. It introduced admission based on the patient's own consent (voluntary admission) and Psychiatric Review Boards.
- Voluntary admissionAdmission to a psychiatric hospital on the basis of the patient's own consent. In Japan it first entered the law with the Mental Health Act of 1987.
Sources
- T. W. Harding, J. Schneider, H. M. Visotsky, G. L. Graves, “Human Rights and Mental Patients in Japan: Report of a Mission on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Commission of Health Professionals,” Geneva: International Commission of Jurists (1986).
- E. Totsuka, “The history of Japanese psychiatry and the rights of mental patients,” Psychiatric Bulletin 14(4), 193–200 (1990).
- Japan, “精神衛生法等の一部を改正する法律 (Act Partially Amending the Mental Hygiene Act), Act No. 98 of 26 September 1987, text as enacted,” House of Representatives of Japan (1987).