Abstract

Research Article

Suicide, the main cause of referral of patients from a general hospital for psychiatric evaluation

Oriol Yuguero Torres*, Elena Gómez and Marianela Guzmán

Published: 07 April, 2021 | Volume 5 - Issue 1 | Pages: 018-021

Introduction: Psychiatric emergencies constitute between 1% - 10% of general emergencies in Spain, of which a quarter will end up being hospital admissions. There is little literature on patients who are referred from general to specialized hospitals.

Methods: Cross-Sectional study of all the patients referred in 2018. Sociodemographic variables and clinical variables, such as diagnosis and discharge destination, were analyzed. An analysis was performed by comparing means with the Chi Square test.

Results: 433 derived emergencies were analyzed. Most of the patients were women. The main reason for derivation were suicide attempts. Of those patients, 40% required hospitalizations. More than 50% of the derived emergencies were referred to the home and followed up on an outpatient basis.

Conclusion: Most derived emergencies are referred to the home after evaluation. This implies that most are not life-threatening and that with adequate tools for evaluating suicide risk, we could avoid transfers and improve the resolution of these cases.

Read Full Article HTML DOI: 10.29328/journal.apmh.1001030 Cite this Article Read Full Article PDF

Keywords:

Emergencies; Suicide; Management

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