Abstract
This article summarizes the conservatorship provisions of the California Civil Commitment Statute, the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act and reviews the major findings from previous studies. By studying the hospital records of eighty-five gravely disabled patients affected by LPS, the authors address issues raised by these reports. The results indicate that the law's provisions work unevenly. Patients with acute and current disability received conservatorships more frequently than those who had been disabled in the past. There is some evidence that the process is used to confine threatening patients and does not function equally well for all diagnostic groups.
Footnotes
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Dr. Young is assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, and director of the Day Hospital, Connecticut Mental Health Center, 34 Park St., New Haven, CT 06519. Dr. Mills is chief, Psychiatry Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center (B116A). 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90073, professor, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, UCLA, and director, Program in Psychiatry and Law, Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA, Medical Center. Dr. Sack is associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR 97201, and clinical director of the Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory, Portland. Send reprint requests to Dr. Young. The authors thank Dorothy Hines for her editorial assistance.
- Copyright © 1986, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
