Stakeholders' Awareness, Need and Future Prospects of Information Disclosure in Japanese Psychiatric Hospitals

Information disclosure is currently accelerating in Japanese general hospitals, while in psychiatric hospitals it has still been closed and opaque. we performed a questionnaire survey to investigate the awareness and need of people of a patients' group and a health professionals' group on information disclosure in psychiatric hospitals. there were 42 subjects for analysis, which consisted of 17 persons with a mental disorder and 25 health professions. among 48 items, there were significant differences for 11 survey items between the patients' group and the health professionals' group. It was found that the patients tended to wish information disclosure on human rights such as body restraint and safety in medicine such as medical accidents and hospital discharges due to death, while the administrators and the health professionals did not always agree on information disclosure of them. the health professionals who opposed information disclosure thought that it would lead to the negative image of psychiatric hospitals. It is necessary that the administrators and the health professionals minimize the gap on awareness, having the knowledge that a great difference of knowledge and experience exist between them and patients. It is possible that the occupational therapists hereafter will be able to play a role in minimizing the gap on awareness between health professionals and patients by having the public know about their services and approaches toward the prevention of accidents. Introduction Japanese psychiatric hospitals have the distinctive characteristics of involuntary hospitalization, closed wards, and restrictions on behavior. these are not apparent in other medical facilities. the public has less opportunity to learn about psychiatric hospitals because of the closedand locked-door policies(Ito et al, 2004). Psychiatric hospitals are sometimes subject to inspections by the national or local government, such as on-the-site instruction in accordance with the law on mental health and welfare for the People with mental disorders and supervision in accordance with the medical Service law. the ministry of health, labor and welfare (mhlw) collects basic data on psychiatric institutions in Japan annually, but the data are not disclosed to the public. the only way Japanese citizens have access to such information is to submit a request to the government to disclose the information based on information disclosure ordinances established by each local government. By using this method, mental health and welfare information from mhlw was disclosed in the following prefectures: osaka (osaka center for human Rights on Psychiatric medical care nPo, 2000); tokyo (tokyo center for human Rights Stakeholders' awareness, need and Future Prospects of Information disclosure in Japanese Psychiatric hospitals toshio hasegawa and teruko Iwasaki key words : Psychiatric hospital, Information disclosure, occupational therapy 1 department of occupational therapy, Faculty of medical technology, niigatauniversity of health and welfare. 2 Professor emeritus, niigata university of health and welfare