Characteristics of patients referred to psychiatric emergency services by crisis intervention team police officers. 2010

Beth Broussard, and Joanne A McGriff, and Berivan N Demir Neubert, and Barbara D'Orio, and Michael T Compton
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.

The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program trains police officers in crisis intervention skills and local psychiatric resources. Because the safety and appropriateness of any new intervention is a crucial consideration, it is necessary to ensure that CIT training does not result in excessive or inappropriate referrals to psychiatric emergency services (PES). Yet, aside from one prior report by Strauss et al. (2005) in Louisville, Kentucky, little is known about the comparability of patients referred to PES by CIT-trained officers in relation to other modes of referral. The research questions driving this retrospective chart review of patients referred to PES were: (1) What types of patients do CIT-trained officers refer to PES?, and (2) Do meaningful differences exist between patients referred by family members, non-CIT officers, and CIT-trained officers? Select sociodemographic and clinical variables were abstracted from the medical records of 300 patients during an eight-month period and compared by mode of referral. Differences across the three groups were found regarding: race, whether or not the patient was held on the locked observation unit, severe agitation, recent substance abuse, global functioning, and unkempt or bizarre appearance. However, there were virtually no differences between patients referred by CIT-trained and non-CIT officers. Thus, while there were some expected differences between patients referred by law enforcement and those referred by family members, CIT-trained officers appear to refer individuals appropriately to PES, as evidenced by such patients differing little from those referred by traditional, non-CIT police officers. Trained officers do not have a narrower view of people in need of emergency services (i.e., bringing in more severely ill individuals), and they do not have a broader view (i.e., bringing in those not in need of emergency services). Although CIT training does not appear to affect the type of individuals referred to PES, future research should examine the effect of CIT training on the frequency of referrals or proportion of subjects encountered that are referred, which may be expected to differ between CIT-trained and non-CIT officers.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D008875 Middle Aged An adult aged 45 - 64 years. Middle Age
D010361 Patients Individuals participating in the health care system for the purpose of receiving therapeutic, diagnostic, or preventive procedures. Clients,Client,Patient
D012017 Referral and Consultation The practice of sending a patient to another program or practitioner for services or advice which the referring source is not prepared to provide. Consultation,Gatekeepers, Health Service,Hospital Referral,Second Opinion,Consultation and Referral,Health Service Gatekeepers,Hospital Referrals,Referral,Referral, Hospital,Referrals, Hospital,Consultations,Gatekeeper, Health Service,Health Service Gatekeeper,Opinion, Second,Opinions, Second,Referrals,Second Opinions
D003419 Crisis Intervention Brief therapeutic approach which is ameliorative rather than curative of acute psychiatric emergencies. Used in contexts such as emergency rooms of psychiatric or general hospitals, or in the home or place of crisis occurrence, this treatment approach focuses on interpersonal and intrapsychic factors and environmental modification. (APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 7th ed) Brief Advice,Brief Interventions,Brief Treatment,Critical Incident Stress Debriefing,Screening and Brief Intervention,Advice, Brief,Brief Intervention,Brief Treatments,Crisis Interventions,Intervention, Brief,Intervention, Crisis,Treatment, Brief
D003617 Dangerous Behavior Actions which have a high risk of being harmful or injurious to oneself or others. Behavior, Dangerous,Dangerousness,Hazardous Behavior,Behavior, Hazardous,Behaviors, Hazardous,Dangerous Behaviors,Hazardous Behaviors
D004637 Emergency Services, Psychiatric Organized services to provide immediate psychiatric care to patients with acute psychological disturbances. Emergency Psychiatric Services,Psychiatric Emergency Services,Services, Emergency Psychiatric,Services, Psychiatric Emergency,Emergency Psychiatric Service,Emergency Service, Psychiatric,Psychiatric Emergency Service,Psychiatric Service, Emergency,Psychiatric Services, Emergency,Service, Emergency Psychiatric,Service, Psychiatric Emergency
D005190 Family A social group consisting of parents or parent substitutes and children. Family Life Cycles,Family Members,Family Life Cycle,Family Research,Filiation,Kinship Networks,Relatives,Families,Family Member,Kinship Network,Life Cycle, Family,Life Cycles, Family,Network, Kinship,Networks, Kinship,Research, Family
D005260 Female Females
D006766 Hospitals, County Hospitals controlled by the county government. County Hospitals,County Hospital,Hospital, County

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