Patients who bring weapons to the psychiatric emergency room.
The personal characteristics of patients who brought weapons to a university hospital-based psychiatric emergency room were examined. During 14 months following implementation of a routine weapon-screening procedure, 37 (4%) of 1012 psychiatric emergency room patients were found to have weapons. These patients did not differ significantly from a randomly selected control group of non-weapon-carrying patients on a variety of demographic and clinical variables often associated with violence potential, although the weapon-carrying patients were more likely to be male and have a history of substance abuse. The heterogeneity of personal characteristics of weapon-carrying patients is likely to make them difficult to distinguish clinically from other patients. The findings have important implications for maintaining safety in the psychiatric emergency room.
D000328:Adult; D004637:Emergency Services, Psychiatric / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D008875:Middle Aged; D012449:Safety; D012737:Sex Factors; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D014754:Violence