Clinical profiles and temporal patterns of psychiatric emergency room visitors in Sweden

AIMS: To describe persons visiting the psychiatric emergency room (PER) in Sweden and to compare persons who frequently (PFV) and infrequently (PIFV) visit PERs in terms of group size, age, gender, PER location inside versus outside the home municipality, diagnosis (ICD 10), temporal patterns of visits and hospital admissions.

METHODS: This register study included all visits to PERs in one Swedish county over 3 years, 2013-2015 (N = 67,031 visits). The study employed descriptive statistics as well as Chi-square tests combined with Bonferroni correction to compare PFV with PIFV.

RESULTS: Of the total of 27,282 visitors, 2201 (8.1%) were identified as PFV (five or more visits within 12 months) and they accounted for 38.1% of the total visits. The study found differences between PFV and PIFV in gender, diagnostic profile, hospital admissions and temporal patterns. Differences were also detected with regard to distance between PERs and home municipalities. However, no age-related differences were found between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS: PFV and PIFV have different clinical profiles and temporal patterns. These results may be important when planning, developing and evaluating interventions targeting the needs of each group, which is in accordance with a person-centred approach. Such an approach might eventually result in fewer visits to PERs.