ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Forensic Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1644958
This article is part of the Research TopicMonitoring, supervision, and reintegration of offenders: addressing challenges in offender managementView all 4 articles
Developing a Training Program of Knowledge and Skills in the Context of Administrative Involuntary Hospitalization: A Pilot Trial
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chiba Daigaku Shakai Seihin Hoken Kyoiku Kenkyu Center, Chiba, Japan
- 2Chiba Shiritsu Aoba Byoin, Chiba, Japan
- 3Chiba Byoin, Funabashi, Japan
- 4Chiba Daigaku Daigakuin Igaku Kenkyuin Igakubu Seishin Igaku Kyoshitsu, Chiba, Japan
- 5Kokuritsu Seishin Shinkei Center Seishin Hoken Kenkyujo, Kodaira, Japan
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Introduction To deal with offenders with mental disorder, the administrative involuntary hospitalization (AIH) scheme was adopted in Japan in 1950. However, its outcomes as well as standard of AIH adaptation remain obscure. Recently we developed a training program for improving the skills for AIH decision-making for early-career psychiatrists. The aim of this pilot study is to implement and investigate the effectiveness of this program. Methods Through snowball sampling, this open interventional exploratory pilot study recruited licensed physicians who possessed or intended to acquire a designated psychiatrist license. Eighteen physicians were enrolled and attended a 4 h seminar including group discussion following a self-learning video session. Subsequently, they completed the Mental Health and Welfare Act Administrative Involuntary Hospitalization Test (AIH Test). An unpaired t-test was used for analysis of the AIH Test scores. Results In total, 17 participants (mean age, 35.6 ± 5.5 years) completed the post-seminar questionnaire on the effectiveness of the seminar. The mean ± standard deviation AIH Test score improved from 12.1 ± 2.1 before the seminar to 14.7 ± 3.9 after the seminar (degrees of freedom = 34, t = −2.45, P = 0.019 [two-tailed]), indicating a significant improvement in knowledge of AIH. As a secondary outcome, scores on the Academic Motivation Scale, reflecting the motivation to study forensic psychiatry, did not change significantly before and after the seminar. Discussion Our AIH skills training program improves knowledge of AIH, without affecting the motivation to study forensic psychiatry.
Keywords: Risk Assessment, Administrative involuntary hospitalization, Mental Health and Welfare Act, Forensic Psychiatry, Motivation
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 23 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shiina, Sudo, Suzuki, Kamata, Niitsu and Fujii. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Akihiro Shiina, shiina-akihiro@faculty.chiba-u.jp
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