Community psychiatric nursing intervention in an accident and emergency department: a clinical pilot study
Storer D., Whitworth R., Salkovskis P., Atha C.
In a pilot study, 99 patients referred from a general hospital accident and emergency department were seen by a community psychiatric nurse (CPN) using a time series design. They were categorized into those patients having a previous psychiatric history and those with none. The level of service use for the 6 months immediately prior to CPN intervention, 6 months following referral, and 6 months of follow‐up indicated a very high level of psychiatric and general medical service use by this group. Referral to the CPN was associated with substantial reduction in the demands on other ser/ices made by the group with previous psychiatric history. The group with no previous history showed a decrease in total service usage at follow‐up. Copyright © 1987, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved