| Summary: | Abstract Major administrative and practical changes at both the national and the local level took place in psychiatry in the 1990s. In Northern Ostrobothnia in Northern Finland, specialised psychiatric care was integrated as part of the health care district in 1988. Three separate psychiatric hospitals — Heikinharju Hospital, Oulunsuu Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry in Oulu University Hospital — were merged in 1990. The purpose of this case study is to describe and assess the history and current status of the new amalgamated Department of Psychiatry in Oulu University Hospital. Change is here approached from the viewpoints of the operating environment, the history preceding the change and the actors operative in the process of change. The report is divided into threes section: history, assessment and instrument testing. The historical section describes the operation of the three independent hospitals before their amalgamation in 1990. The assessment section aims to evaluate the change and overall situation of the Department of Psychiatry in Oulu University Hospital based on data collected in 1993–1997 and also to analyse the change in terms of public control and legislation. In the third section, the theoretical structure of the instrument is evaluated. Both published and unpublished sources were used in the historical analysis. The data were further supplemented by interviewing medical professionals, patients and relatives in the three hospitals. Data for the assessment survey were collected using a questionnaire, which included an instrument. The instrument consisted of 20 questions evaluating the status of the key subfunctions of the care organisation. Five groups of informants — staff, patients, relatives, line management and partners — responded to the inquiries arranged in 1993, 1995 and 1997. The material comprised a total of 2,176 responses. Frequency and percentage distributions, variation and mean values and cross-tabulation were used to outline the results. The responses to open-ended ...
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