Managing Community-Based Psychiatric Emergencies: An Integrative Review

To evaluate different models of response to community-based mental health emergencies.

An integrative review was conducted with literature retrieved from PubMed. A total of 1,646 articles were found through the literature search, of which 192 were determined to be relevant and were reviewed.

We reviewed the three most utilized models of emergency response: Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs) of police only response, mobile crisis teams (MCTs) of civilian only response, and co-response teams (CRTs) of combined police and civilian response. All models are effective. CITs are associated with reductions in officer and citizen injuries and reductions in citizen arrests. MCTs are more acceptable by the general population and may be more effective at managing mental health emergencies and ensuring outpatient follow up but are limited in the scope of emergencies they can handle, particularly when there are associated dangers. CRTs combine the benefits of the two other models but are not synergistic.

Nursing involvement can improve the efficacy and outcomes of MCTs and CRTs.