Abstract
Views on coercion in psychiatry as expressed by medical staff of mental hospitals, psychiatric patients, and senior medical students are compared in the paper. These data were obtained using a questionnaire based on the draft of the Mental Health Act of May 1993. Ss' responses were analyzed for their concordance with the Act provisions, and a number of respondent categories were singled out: those holding liberal or radical views, and others, preferring the medical or legal-administrative models of psychiatric care. A marked concordance of opinions was found in all groups under study, as well as medicalization of attitudes, and the need for extending recommendations for the use of coercion in psychiatry beyond the limits proposed in the Act.