Women's experiences of admission to a crisis house and to acute hospital wards: A qualitative study

Background: Crisis houses offer an alternative to hospital admission to individuals for whom home treatment is inappropriate because of severity of disturbance, risk or a poor home environment.Aims: To investigate and compare women's experiences of admission to a women-only crisis house and to general acute wards.Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 30 women admitted to a women-only crisis house and 20 admitted to one of 3 hospital acute units. Experiences of admission to each setting were explored and compared. Relevant themes were extracted using qualitative content analysis.Results: In general, the crisis house is highly valued by service users. They consider that their recovery is promoted by a home-like environment, absence of disturbed male patients, ready availability of staff for talking through current and past difficulties and good support from other residents. Admission to the house is often experienced as less stigmatizing than hospital. However, they perceive the service as relatively selective, both in excluding those not severely ill enough for hospital to be considered and in filtering out very unwell women who cannot take responsibility for their own safety.