Many hospital emergency departments are overcrowded and short-staffed, with a limited number of available hospital beds. It is increasingly hard for emergency departments and their staff to provide the necessary level of care for medical patients. Caring for people with psychiatric disabilities raises different issues and calls on different skills. In Emergency Department Treatment of the Psychiatric Patient, the author uses research, surveys, and statutory and litigation materials to examine problems with emergency department care for clients with psychiatric disorders. She relies on intervie ... More

Many hospital emergency departments are overcrowded and short-staffed, with a limited number of available hospital beds. It is increasingly hard for emergency departments and their staff to provide the necessary level of care for medical patients. Caring for people with psychiatric disabilities raises different issues and calls on different skills. In Emergency Department Treatment of the Psychiatric Patient, the author uses research, surveys, and statutory and litigation materials to examine problems with emergency department care for clients with psychiatric disorders. She relies on interviews with emergency department nurses, doctors and psychiatrists, as well as surveys of people with psychiatric disabilities in order to present the perspectives of both the individuals seeking treatment, and those providing it. This book explores the structural pressures on emergency departments and identifies the burdens and conflicts that undermine their efforts to provide compassionate care to people in psychiatric crisis. In addition to presenting a new analysis of the source of these problems, the author also suggests alternatives to emergency department treatment for people in psychiatric crisis. Moreover, she proposes standards for treatment of these individuals when they do inevitably end up in a hospital emergency department.