Identification of patients in need of psychiatric intervention: visiting an emergency facility.

The utilization of the emergency room (E.R.) at a small community hospital located in a black inner-city area is investigated. Patients are classified according to a criterion for psychiatric intervention for the purpose of making staffing pattern recommendations. Psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric patients are classified by age, marital status, previous admissions to the E.R., time of arrival and time spent in the E.R., and circumstances of mode of arrival in the E.R. The criterion of psychiatric intervention is viewed as providing an additional dimension in the study of the emergency room, a hospital service which is providing increasing routine and non-routine medical care to the general population.