The prevalence of mental health patients in the field of pre-hospital emergency care and police in the South-West Finland hospital district
Niemi, Lauri (2021)
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202104074370
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202104074370
Tiivistelmä
The South-West Finland hospital district is planning a new psychiatric hospital in Turku, which is scheduled to be completed sometime between 2023 and 2024. This thesis studies mental health patients in the field of pre-hospital emergency care and police to provide information for the operational planning of the 24/7 triage in the new psychiatric hospital.
The significant downsizing of psychiatric hospital beds since the 1980’s and the consequential transition of mental health services to outpatient care have resulted in increased prevalence of mental health patients in emergency care settings worldwide. Researchers domestically and globally have thus taken great interest in studying mental health patients in EMS settings and a significant body of literature now exists on mental health patients as a special patient group in pre-hospital emergency care. However, studies on the importance of pre-hospital emergency care as an integral part of mental health services are still few and far between.
For this thesis, data on the number of mental health-related missions for both emergency care and police was requested from the Turku emergency response center. Over a study period of three years the amount of mental health-related missions in the field of emergency care was on a steady rise, while very little changes in this category were observed in the field of the police. Many of the research questions in this study could not be answered due to the unavailability of the necessary data, implicating further need for research and development in this area of study.
The significant downsizing of psychiatric hospital beds since the 1980’s and the consequential transition of mental health services to outpatient care have resulted in increased prevalence of mental health patients in emergency care settings worldwide. Researchers domestically and globally have thus taken great interest in studying mental health patients in EMS settings and a significant body of literature now exists on mental health patients as a special patient group in pre-hospital emergency care. However, studies on the importance of pre-hospital emergency care as an integral part of mental health services are still few and far between.
For this thesis, data on the number of mental health-related missions for both emergency care and police was requested from the Turku emergency response center. Over a study period of three years the amount of mental health-related missions in the field of emergency care was on a steady rise, while very little changes in this category were observed in the field of the police. Many of the research questions in this study could not be answered due to the unavailability of the necessary data, implicating further need for research and development in this area of study.