Unlocking an acute psychiatric ward: open doors, absent patients?

Unlocking an acute psychiatric ward: the impact on unauthorised absences, assaults and seclusions

Aims and method The acute psychiatric in-patient service in Christchurch, New Zealand, recently changed from two locked and two unlocked wards to four open wards. This provided the opportunity to evaluate whether shifting to an unlocked environment was associated with higher rates of adverse events, including unauthorised absences, violent incidents and seclusion. We compared long-term adverse ...

[Involuntary admissions to an acute psychiatric ward].

BACKGROUND Involuntary admission to acute psychiatric wards in Norway has not been studied empirically after the introduction of a new Mental Health Act (MHA) 1 January 2001. According to the MHA, observation with coercion can be used to clarify illness. The objectives of this study were to describe scale and circumstances associated with involuntary admissions. METHOD All patients discharged...

Geriatric patients in an acute medical ward.

During a nine-month study 160 out of 482 bed-weeks in an acute medical ward were accounted for by 11 patients who no longer needed to be there. This was unsatisfactory both for the 11 patients concerned and for those patients requiring admission for whom the beds were blocked.

A preliminary study of Patient Dignity Inventory validation among patients hospitalized in an acute psychiatric ward

PURPOSE To investigate the perception of dignity among patients hospitalized in a psychiatric setting using the Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI), which had been first validated in oncologic field among terminally ill patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS After having modified two items, we administered the Italian version of PDI to all patients hospitalized in a public psychiatric ward (Service of Ps...

Gently adjusting open doors.