A survey of psychiatric consultations at a suburban emergency room

The utilization of psychiatric crisis teams in urban hospitals is well documented. However, little is reported describing patients who use crisis teams in suburban general hospital emergency rooms. This is a descriptive survey of 1707 suburban patient visits. This study relates patient demographics with the length of time required to provide crisis intervention and disposition. A regression model is used to analyze the duration of service time and utilization patterns in relation to eight variables: season, month, day, shift, diagnosis, method of payment, age, and disposition. Five predictors are identified as significantly relating to the duration of the psychiatric consultation process. These predictors may enable hospital administrators and medical staff to plan and implement psychiatric emergency room care.