Psychiatric emergencies at a university teaching hospital in eastern saudi arabia

This is a study of psychiatric presentations to an Accident and Emer-gency (A & E) Department of a Saudi general teaching hospital.

Consecutive series of psychiatric presentations over 6 months to the A & E Department of a general teaching hospital at Al-Khobar, East-ern Saudi Arabia, were prospectively investigated. Diagnoses were made according to ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders.

There were 273 visits, accounted for by 182 index subjects and 37 subjects who made 91 repeat visits (33.3%). The age range of the index group was 5 to 82 years, with 75% below 38 years of age. The majority of the index group (78%) and repeaters (97.3%) were Saudi. Most index subjects (52.7%) were married, but only 40.5% of repeaters were so. Family was the predominant source of referral of both index (53.8%) and repeat visits (60%). Mood disorders were the commonest diagno-ses at both index (31.7%) and repeat visits (39.6%). Most index subjects (57.7%) and repeated visits (56%) were managed at the A &E Department and given psychiatric outpatient appointment. Just over one-fifth (22%) of the index subjects and a little over a quarter (25.3%) of repeated visits were admitted to the psychiatric ward, Mood Disorders being predominant among both.

Adequate psychiatric training of primary health care physicians and the establishment of crisis intervention community psychiatric services are advocated.