This exploratory study aims to investigate the ward atmosphere of single-sex wards in a forensic psychiatric context in the light of Moos’ conceptualization of the treatment setting.

The wards for female patients bore similarities to Relationship-Oriented and Insight-Oriented programmes and had a generally positive ward atmosphere. On the other hand the wards for male patients did not resemble any treatment programme and had a more mixed diagnosis profile than those for female patients. Comparisons of the two types of wards are made and implications of the findings in terms of the overriding principle of normalization are discussed.