A crisis management quality improvement initiative in a children's psychiatric hospital: design, implementation, and outcome.

Behavioral crisis management, including the use of seclusion and restraint, is the most high risk process in the psychiatric care of children and adolescents. The authors describe hospital-wide programmatic changes implemented at a children's psychiatric hospital that aimed to improve the quality of crisis management services. Pre/post quantitative and qualitative data suggest reduced restraint and seclusion use, reduced patient and staff injury related to crisis management, and increased patient satisfaction during the post-program period.

Trends in psychotropic drug use in a child psychiatric hospital from 1991-1998.

Objective: This study was undertaken to analyze inpatient prescribing patterns of psychotropic drugs in a child psychiatric hospital from 1991-1998.

Methods: Hospital pharmacy dispensing data were reviewed. Total admissions, first admissions, and readmissions were identified, and medication status of all patients at admission and at discharge was ascertained.

Autism-related language, personality, and cognition in people with absolute pitch: results of a preliminary study.

Reports of a relatively high prevalence of absolute pitch (AP) in autistic disorder suggest that AP is associated with some of the distinctive cognitive and social characteristics seen in autism spectrum disorders. Accordingly we examined cognition, personality, social behavior, and language in 13 musicians with strictly defined AP (APS) and 33 musician controls (MC) without AP using standardized interviews and tests previously applied to identify the broad autism phenotype seen in the relatives of autistic probands. These included the Pragmatic Rating Scale (PRS) (social aspects of language) the Personality Assessment Schedule (PAS) (rigidity, aloofness, anxiety/worry, hypersensitivity), and WAIS performance subtests (PIQ).