National Federation of Families for the Mentally Ill in Japan

There are many characteristics of psychiatric care in Japan: the number of beds in psychiatric hospitals is relatively large (Figure 5.1); many patients are hospitalised long-term for non-medical reasons, i.e. social hospitalisation; the special regulation allows the psychiatric unit to have lesser numbers of staff, doctors and nurses, compared to other medical units, which is called special exemption for psychiatric hospitals. ¹ Figure 5.1 Number of beds in psychiatric hospitals: international comparison. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203098349/0c96469b-8cb7-4c0b-becc-35ec40d44421/content/fig5_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: OECD Health Data, 2002.