In a file photo courtesy of KCBS-TV Britney Spears is carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance from her home in Los Angeles Ca. late Thursday night Jan. 3, 2008. [Agencies]

Britney Spears got her stay in a psychiatric ward extended Sunday, as doctors decided to keep her hospitalized an additional 14 days, someone close to the pop star told the Associated Press.

Spears was to be released from UCLA Medical Center's psychiatric hospital Sunday, but doctors and a medical officer at the ward determined that she should remain, said the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Spears was committed Thursday for a 72-hour hold for evaluation. Paramedics, flanked by a police escort of about a dozen officers on motorcycles, in cars and a helicopter, took Spears from her home to the psychiatric hospital before dawn.

To extend her stay, hospital staff members cited a section in the state law that allows patients to be retained for medical treatment if they are found to be gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others, the person said.

A UCLA Medical Center spokesman did not immediately return a phone message Sunday seeking comment. Calls to attorneys Sorrell Trope, Spears' personal lawyer, and Andrew Wallet, also were not returned.

Court Commissioner Reva Goetz ruled the day after Spears was hospitalized — and following a year of increasingly bizarre public behavior — that she needed to have someone else take over her personal and financial affairs.