Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:21:31.463Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Referrals at day and night time to an acute psychiatric care unit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2008

John E Berg
John E Berg*
Affiliation:
Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital, Oslo, Norway
*
Correspondence to: Dr J.E. Berg, Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital, Department of Acute Psychiatry, 0440 Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47 23226000; E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Patients can be referred at any time of day or night for acute care in an inpatient setting in a psychiatric hospital. The time of arrival at an acute psychiatric care unit has not previously been studied. We studied all referrals (1323) of 1027 individual patients to our unit in 2005 according to time of arrival at the unit.

Between 08.00 and 16.59 51.6% arrived, between 17.00 and 00.59 39.1%, and between 01.00 and 07.59 in the morning 9.3%. Mean length of stay was lowest for patients arriving at night. 637 referred patients were female and 686 male. This was not different from the representation in the catchment area population. Females had longer mean stays than men, 11.3 versus 9.4 days, but more men than women were referred during the year. 19.4% of referred patients ended their stay within the first day; two referrals lasted for more than 100 days. Patients referred between 01.00 and 07.59 ended their stay within one day in 39.0% of cases, and within seven days in 76.4% of cases.

Almost half of all patients arrived when all therapists except the doctor on duty, who is in training, had left the unit.

Keywords

Emergency admissionsout of hours admissionsgender differenceslength of residential stay
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care , Volume 4 , Issue 1-2 , December 2008 , pp. 3 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © NAPICU 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berg, J. (2007) Når på døgnet legges pasienter inn i en akuttpsykiatrisk avdeling? Tidskr Nor Lægeforen, 127: 590–591.Google Scholar
Busche, M. (1988) Admission of psychiatric patients in accordance with Lower Saxony psychiatric legislation. Psychiatrische Praxis. 15: 48–52.Google ScholarPubMed
Fabrega, H., Mezzich, J., Ulrich, R. and Benjamin, L. (1990) Females and males in an intake psychiatric setting. Psychiatry. 53:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kishi, Y., Meller, W.H., Kathol, R.G. and Swigart, S.E. (2004) Factors affecting the relationship between the timing of psychiatric consultation and general hospital length of stay. Psychosomatics. 45: 470–476.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pincus, H.A. (2005) Psychiatric consultations and length of hospital stay. Psychosomatics. 46: 496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riecher, A., Rossler, W., Loffler, W. and Fatkenheuer, B. (1991) Factors influencing compulsory admission of psychiatric patients. Psychological Medicine. 21: 197–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steel, R. and Mckay, I. (2000) Pathways to psychiatric admission: A study of 100 consecutive admissions to south Glasgow acute adult psychiatric wards. Health Bulletin. 58: 112–117.Google ScholarPubMed
Vehviläinen, A.T., Kumpusalo, E.A. and Takala, J.K. (1988) Saturday night fever? Reasons for referral from health centres to hospitals during weekends in Finland. Family Practice. 15: 507–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wise, T., Jani, N., Kass, E. and Mann, L. (1990) Is the Friday afternoon consult frequent? Timing of consultation requests on a psychiatric consultation service. Psychiatric Medicine. 8: 59–64.Google ScholarPubMed
Younès, N., Hardy-Bayle, M., Falissard, B., Kovess, V., Chaillet, M. and Gasquet, I. (2005) Differing mental health practice among general practitioners, private psychiatrists and public psychiatrists. BMC Public Health. 5: 104–110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed