To analyse factors associated with hospitalisation in patients with schizophrenia from four European countries, and to investigate whether national specificities might have an impact on the profile of inpatients.

A randomly selected sample of psychiatrists (N=744), from Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain, collected data on the five last patients with schizophrenia they had seen in consultation (N=3996).

High positive symptoms, lack of insight, not living with the family, frequent past episodes, addiction to illegal drugs, global severity, uncooperativeness and smoking were significantly associated with hospitalisation, with OR between 4.1 and 1.26. Nevertheless, only high positive symptoms from the PANSS and lack of insight were systematically detected in the four countries. Among different results, the weight of “not living with the family” had national specificities, as Germany was the only country where this factor played no role (OR=0.94).

Although some factors such as positive symptoms are associated with hospitalisation in a very homogenous way throughout different countries, discrepancies were detected between countries, for “living with the family”, “number of past acute relapses” and “uncooperativeness”. Linking these specificities to national healthcare systems might be useful to promote access to care for all patients.