An Innovative, Nurse-Led Service for Appropriate Management of Psychiatric Emergencies: Initial Findings.

The emergency department (ED) physicians working for the French Service d'Aide Medicale d'Urgence (SAMU) refer about 84% of individuals who contact SAMU for psychiatric problems to the psychiatric ED (PED), compared with only 20% of those calling with other medical emergencies. Physicians' lack of psychiatric knowledge may contribute to the high PED referral rate. The authors created a new psychiatric nurse-led service to improve the identification of psychiatric emergencies and assessed PED referrals and inpatient hospitalization rates before and after the new service commenced.