Initial care of psychiatric emergency patients

Many patients consulting medical emergency services make the initial contact because of psychiatric emergency situations. However, emergency physicians and their assistants are usually not sufficiently experienced in psychiatry. Therefore, psychiatric emergencies are sometimes only reluctantly accepted or inadequately treated by these services. Our present contribution aims at improving this situation. It gives a review of the main diagnostic groups concerned, their symptomatology and psychopathology,and offers some advice with regard to empathic verbal interventions and counselling in those emergency situations.