@article{ref1,
title="Psychiatric emergencies of asylum seekers; descriptive analysis and comparison with immigrants of warranted residence",
journal="International journal of environmental research and public health",
year="2018",
author="Schoretsanitis, Georgios and Eisenhardt, Sarah and Ricklin, Meret E. and Srivastava, David S. and Walther, Sebastian and Exadaktylos, Aristomenis",
volume="15",
number="7",
pages="e15071300-e15071300",
abstract="<i>Background:</i> The aim of our study was to assess utilization patterns of psychiatric services by asylum seekers. <i>Methods:</i> We included 119 adults who presented themselves at the University Emergency Department between 1 March 2012 and 1 January 2017 for psychiatric consultation. Descriptive data were compared with a control group of non-Swiss individuals with warranted residence permits using Mann-Whitney-<i>U</i> and chi square (χ²) tests. <i>Results:</i> Patients were mainly single, male, residing in reception centers, and presented themselves most frequently due to suicidal ideation. Almost 60% of the patients were assigned to inpatient treatments, with 28 involuntary cases. Compared to the control group, asylum seekers were younger and more often men (<i>p</i> < 0.001 for both). Further, they less often had family in Switzerland (χ² = 9.91, <i>p</i> = 0.007). The proportion of patients coming in as walk-ins was significantly higher in the control group than in asylum seekers (χ² = 37.0, <i>p</i> < 0.001). Asylum seekers were more frequently referred due to suicidal ideation and aggressive behavior than participants in the control group (χ² = 80.07, <i>p</i> < 0.001). Diagnoses for asylum seekers infrequently included mood, as they often reported stress-related disorders (χ² = 19.6, <i>p</i> = 0.021) and they were infrequently released home (χ² = 9.19, <i>p</i> = 0.027). <i>Conclusion:</i> Asylum seekers more frequently demonstrated severe symptoms such as suicidal ideation and aggressive behavior and they were mainly treated as inpatients, potentially due to minimal social resources.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1661-7827",
doi="10.3390/ijerph15071300",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15071300"
}