Psychiatric Emergencies

The greatest potential error... is overlooking a physical illness as a cause of a psychiatric illness - Mohamed I. Ramadan MD

Psychiatric Emergencies

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How to Tell Whether a Psychiatric Emergency is Due to Disease or Psychological Illness

On the one hand, these psychiatric patients are high-risk medical patients. They not only have a higher incidence of chronic medical conditions, but they’re at greater risk of injury, including serious head injury, than the general population. The rate of missed medical diagnoses in the emergency department ranges from 8 to 48 percent, with the highest missed diagnosis rate among first presentation...

On the other hand, psychiatric patients can stress the emergency department, with the average length of stay ranging from 15 to 30 hours, depending on the whether they require medical clearance and whether they are admitted.

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Resources

  How to Tell Whether a Psychiatric Emergency is Due to Disease or Psychological Illness

The emergency department serves as both the lifeline and the gateway to psychiatric care for millions of patients suffering from acute behavioral or mental health emergencies. As ED providers, in addition to assessing the risk of suicide and homicide, one of our most important responsibilities is to determine whether the patient’s behavioral emergency is the result of an organic disease process, as opposed to a psychological one; there is no standard process for this.

American Association for Emergency Psychiatry

The American Association for Emergency Psychiatry (AAEP) sponsors educational programs and provides a network of experts to address clinical, educational, administrative, research and legal programs for the diverse disciplines involved in emergency psychiatry.

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