[A social psychiatric study on foreign-born inpatients at Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa hospital].

The authors carried out a chart review study of 293 foreign-born patients who were admitted to Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital from January 1986 to December 1992. We divided the subjects into three groups according to their living status in Japan, Immigrant group: 66 long-term residents, Resident group: 188 short-term residents with purposes of work or study, and Visitor group: 39 temporary visitors for sightseeing or business. The subjects came from 43 countries in the world, 70.3% (206/293) of whom were those from Asian countries. The subjects grew in number every year and the noticeable feature was a drastic increase in the number of Resident group (e.g. 6 patients in 1986, 63 in 1992). The mean duration (SD) of hospitalization for Immigrant group was the longest among the groups (Immigrant group: 58.7 (55.0) days, Resident group: 31.9 (35.0) days, Visitor group: 19.0 (16.3) days). The frequent diagnoses at discharge based on ICD-9, were schizophrenia (59.7%) and reactive psychosis (19.1%). The significantly larger proportion of Visitor group had previous psychiatric histories in their homeland than other groups (Visitor group: 56.4%, Immigrant group: 24.2%, Resident group: 23.9%). 70.0% (205/293) of the subjects could not use Japanese in usual settings and the number of them had been increasing every year. This communication difficulty had caused serious inconvenience in the treatment. All of Visitor group, and 71.8% (135/188) of Resident group could not receive social securities, and there were difficulties for them to raise money for their medical treatment and living expenses. 92.3% among Visitor group, 91.0% of Resident group and 21.2% of Immigrant group returned to their homeland after inpatient treatment. The result indicated that we must immediately establish the interpreter dispatch system for foreign-born patients and that of the social securities guaranteeing their medical care and living expenses.