Examined discharge summaries for 97 patients discharged during 1999 from the Psychiatric Hospital in Bahrain as a tool for auditing and as part of training of psychiatrists. All samples of discharge summaries were scrutinized against a checklist of 27 items. Results suggest that there are several important areas in which completion of summaries could be improved, including details about prognosis, personality and information given to patients and relatives, International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes and diagnostic formulation. It is recommended that examining discharge summaries can be a first step in starting a comprehensive audit of psychiatric hospitals, which is viewed as an important step in educating psychiatrists.