[Crisis intervention in the emergency service of a general hospital]

Two general hospitals of Brussels tapped, in 1977, 47% of all the emergency ambulance traffic. More than 50,000 patients were examined there in one year. A randomized sample of 12,000 records were analyzed. From this file, 1707 psychosocial cases were carried out. The study will follow the progression of the patients during this crisis situation. Statistic tests pinpoint that the most determining variable is the symptoms. Seven symptoms cover more than 95% of the interventions. These symptoms are: alcoholism, suicide attempts, abnormal behavior, psychologic complaints, somatic complaints, violence, drug-addiction. Statistical analysis reveals that the two most important variables to draws crisis interventions at the emergency room were the time used by patient and the frequency of call of the psychiatrist. Other variables used to draw up the progression of the patients were: way of arrival, diagnosis and final destination.