Involuntary hospitalisation rates for psychiatric illness are 20 times higher in some parts of the world than others, with Australia among the top few in a league table of high-income countries.

But it’s not due to differing legislation, the UK researchers say.

The data show rates of sectioning vary by country from a low of 14.5 per 100,000 individuals in Italy, to 282 per 100,000 in Austria, the study authors write in the Lancet Psychiatry.

Figures for Australia reveal 189 people per 100,000 were sectioned in 2014, which jumped to 227 in 2016.