THE NORDIC COMPARATIVE-STUDY ON SECTORIZED PSYCHIATRY - CHARACTERISTICS OF REPEAT USERS OF EMERGENCY OUTPATIENT SERVICES IN 2 NORDIC PSYCHIATRIC-SERVICES - A 1-YEAR FOLLOW-UP-STUDY

To characterise frequent use of psychiatric emergency outpatients serv ices, this paper reports results from a prospective investigation of u se of psychiatric services by new patients in two Nordic psychiatric s ervices, Frederiksberg in Denmark and Oulu in Finland. One year treate d incidence cohorts were used. Total number of patients included was 1 ,055. The repeat user was defined as a patient having at least three e mergency outpatient contacts during a 1-year follow-up. The repeat use rs constituted 15.8% of the sample and 70.8% of all the emergency cont acts in Frederiksberg. In Oulu the respective figures were 9.3% and 33 .8%. The number of planned outpatient contacts or the number of hospit al admissions of the repeat users did not differ from the non-repeater s. Repeaters in Frederiksberg were more likely to be self-referrals, m ale, divorced or unmarried, living with their parents, without their o wn housing, unemployed, aged between 25 and 44 years, and to have a di agnosis of dependency or personality disorder. In Oulu they did nor di ffer from the other patients with regard to sociodemographic or diagno stic characteristics. (C) 1998, Elsevier, Paris.