“More than 1.7 million episodes of agitation occur annually in U.S. emergency departments and are a leading cause of patient suffering and staff injuries.
“Avoiding harm to all parties requires a complex juggling act on the part of psychiatrists and others, Garland Holloman, M.D., director of Psychiatric Emergency Services at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, told an audience at APA’s Institute on Psychiatric Services in San Francisco in October.
“‘Emergency department staff need to use techniques of verbal deescalation while simultaneously managing physical medical diagnosis and treatment,’ said Holloman. ‘The goal is to help the patient regain control.’”
The American Association for Emergency Psychiatry has released new guidelines suggesting best practices for addressing agitation in emergency departments. Psychiatric News gives a summary of the new guidelines. The full guidelines were published in the February issue of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.
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