Am J Psychiatry 1988; 145:918-925
Copyright © 1988 by American Psychiatric Association
Psychiatric decision making in the emergency room: a research overview
DC Marson, MP McGovern and HC Pomp
Division of Psychology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL.
In an overview of the research on psychiatric decision making in the
emergency room, the authors discuss studies done between 1963 and 1977,
which suffered from an overreliance on univariate statistical techniques,
problems with the reliability and validity of the instruments used for data
collection, and the lack of alternatives to hospitalization for emergency
room patients. More recent studies of emergency room decision making are
then reviewed, with particular attention to those that had multivariate
statistical designs. The article concludes with a synthesis of the research
findings to date and recommends multivariate approaches and choices of
variables for future studies.
