Emergency psychiatry in the 21st century: critical issues for the future

Throughout decades of deinstitutionalization, the primary purpose of psychiatric emergency facilities has been defined as rapid referral of patients, triaging those who need 'emergent' care for their mental or emotional problems from those who do not. However, a merely triage-based conceptualization of the psychiatric emergency room does not take into account the ever increasing number of patients, the low accessibility of specialized services, the high need for early recognition of mental problems, or the need toward a more continuous provision of care. In this paper we aim to address some contemporary problems of emergency psychiatry, and then we try to outline some issues that may be of importance in the future of the psychiatric emergency room.