%0 Journal Article %T Psychiatric emergencies of asylum seekers; descriptive analysis and comparison with immigrants of warranted residence %J International journal of environmental research and public health %D 2018 %A Schoretsanitis, Georgios %A Eisenhardt, Sarah %A Ricklin, Meret E. %A Srivastava, David S. %A Walther, Sebastian %A Exadaktylos, Aristomenis %V 15 %N 7 %P e15071300-e15071300 %X Background: The aim of our study was to assess utilization patterns of psychiatric services by asylum seekers. Methods: 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-U and chi square (χ²) tests. Results: 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 (p < 0.001 for both). Further, they less often had family in Switzerland (χ² = 9.91, p = 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, p < 0.001). Asylum seekers were more frequently referred due to suicidal ideation and aggressive behavior than participants in the control group (χ² = 80.07, p < 0.001). Diagnoses for asylum seekers infrequently included mood, as they often reported stress-related disorders (χ² = 19.6, p = 0.021) and they were infrequently released home (χ² = 9.19, p = 0.027). Conclusion: 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.

Language: en

%G en %I MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute %@ 1661-7827 %U http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15071300