Eight years of psychiatric examination of detainees by forensic physicians in the Netherlands

Many apparent mentally ill individuals brought to the police station are sent home by the forensic physician. Before the psychiatric assessment, medical causes of psychiatric illnesses, for example excited delirium syndrome and hypoglycemia, drug use (GHB, cocaine, heroin), and cerebral pathology are excluded. The police perform as one of the channels through which the mentally ill get entrance to mental health care. Our data show no changes in the number of psychiatric assessments during 2005-2013.