[The police in psychiatric daily routine]

The following is a description of those patients brought by the police to the emergency room of a general hospital of Berlin for a psychiatric exploration.

The medical records of those patients brought in to the emergency room during one year were analyzed retrospectively.

Within one year, 317 (10.8%) out of 2903 patients were brought by the police to have an emergency psychiatric exploration. The ratio of men to women was 2:1, and the median age was 41. Most illnesses diagnosed were schizophrenia, disorders caused by psychotropic substances, alcoholism, alcohol intoxication, and adjustment disorders/stress disorders. One third of the 317 patients were under influence of alcohol. 21.8% of the 317 patients were suicidal. Over two thirds of the patients were admitted to the psychiatric ward. Only 31 patients were not admitted to the ward for lack of indication. The most frequent reason for intervention of police was suicidal behaviour (35%), "strange behaviour" (28.7%) or aggressive behaviour (23%).

The results show that those patients brought in by the police are in acute crisis situations often involving suicidal tendencies and suffer from more severe psychiatric illnesses. The psychiatric emergency exploration initiated by the police was generally justifiable.