The characteristics of police presentations to an emergency department in a community hospital

SummaryPolice regularly compel patients with possible mental health issues to emergency departments for assessment and treatment, rather than having the legal systems imposed on such patients. The characteristic of police presentations to emergency department is unknown. This descriptive study aims to prospectively examine the characteristics mental health patients brought in by the police would hopefully allow emergency staff and mental health services develop strategies in caring for such presentations and allocating such resources as needed. The characteristics in this study will include the patients demographic, day of presentation, date of presentation, arrival time to department, triage code given to presentation, departure time, time in department, diagnosis, psychiatric history, forensic history, alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, follow-up by community mental health, admission rate, length of stay in emergency department, outcome of the presentations, rate of admission and length of stay.