First admission rates to the psychiatric hospital in Kuwait revealed that foreign housemaids as a whole had about five times the rate of Kuwaiti females. According to hospital diagnoses the housemaids had significantly more acute situational disturbances and mania, and less depressive illness and organic mental disorders. Regarding schizophrenia and paranoid state there was no significant difference between the two groups. It is recommended that good interpreters should be appointed as part of an appropriate staffing of the psychiatric hospital.