Pre-employment psychiatric examinations

Abstract

A psychiatric referee carried out pre-employment psychiatric examinations on two groups of former psychiatric patients, 96 before and 256 after the Employment Protection Act 1975 became law. The Act prohibited terms of health probation lasting more than one year. The total percentage of subjects rejected (26%) was high. For schizophrenic patients, the proportion rejected increased from 17% before the Act to 46% afterwards, primarily because of the restriction on the length of probation. The inequality created by the Act should be redressed. And confidential returns of the work of all referees ought to be collated.