No harm done? Psychological assessment in the A&E department of patients who deliberately harm themselves.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether psychosocial assessments of patients presenting to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, with deliberate self-harm are recorded adequately in the case notes, using the criteria of the 1994 Royal College of Psychiatrists' consensus statement on managing adult deliberate self-harm in hospital.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study of case notes.


METHODS
A total of 338 patients (accounting for 404 episodes of deliberate self-harm) who presented consecutively between 1 January and 30 June 1996.


RESULTS
56% of episodes resulted in admission to a general hospital bed. In only 11% of conscious patients were adequate psychological assessments recorded in the case notes. Little psychosocial information was recorded in the notes of those patients discharged without follow-up from accident and emergency.


CONCLUSIONS
In the A&E department of this teaching hospital, there is inadequate recording of important psychological information in the case notes of patients who present with deliberate self-harm.
Head
L
L
Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge.
Campbell-Hewson
G L
GL
O'Keane
V
V
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006753:Hospital Records; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*