Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:623-628
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Trends in emergency psychiatry in the last two decades
JH Bristol, E Giller Jr and JP Docherty
Emergency psychiatric services provide essential care. Their utilization
may also be assumed to reflect the health care needs of a population. The
authors observed trends in an emergency psychiatric service over a 17-year
period by comparing 400 randomly selected patient visits in 1977 with date
from 1960 and 1970. They found a decrease in the number of patients seeking
treatment, decreased patient age and socioeconomic status, increased use by
men, increased night visits, little change in diagnostic categories, and a
striking increase in hospitalization since 1970. These data support the
importance of assessing trends in emergency psychiatric services over time
to ensure that they meet the needs of the population being served.
