From 2006 to 2009, the Dutch government provided [euro sign]5 m annually for a nationwide program to reduce seclusion in psychiatric hospitals by 10% a year. We aimed to establish whether the numbers of both seclusion and involuntary medication changed significantly after the start of this national program.
Methods
Using Poisson regression to estimate difference in logit slopes, we analyzed data for 1998–2009 from the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate, retrospectively examining the national numbers of seclusion and involuntary medication before and after the start of the program.