정신과 응급실 반복방문자들에 관한 분석

An Analysis of Repeat Visitors in the Psychiatric Emergency Room

The authors try to elucidate repeat visitors to a psychiatric emergency room by analyzing 68 repeators who had been visited more than two times during the periods of 1991. 6. 1-1992. 5. 30 to the Chung-Ang University Hospital Emergemcy Room while remaining 599 single visitors were categorized as non-repeators. Repeat visits to a psychiatric emergency service comprise 10.2 % of all psychiatric emergency patients revealing overrepresented in the middle age group (mainly 30-40 years of age), who are more likely to have sparse social support, to be currently in neuropsychiatic treatment and to show a tendency of alcohol, drug or other substance abuse liability as well as personality disorder. Reasons for psychiatric emergency room visit were largely due to transient situational disturbance and for the diagnostic distribution they were more likely to be diagnosed as somatoform disorder, anxiety disorder and personality disorder in order of frequency, while psychotic disorders were disproportionately low as compared to earlier studies. There are two contradictory tendencies coexist in decisions about disposition, which suggested there were two distinctive subgroups of repeators ; those who were rejecting psychiatric care were showing acute reaction to situational disturbance and those who were conforming to psychiatric management were representing chronic psychiatric invalids