Initial care of psychiatric emergency patients

Many patients consulting medical emergency services make the initial contac t because of psychiatric emergency situations. However, emergency physician s and their assistants are usually not sufficiently experienced in psychiat ry. Therefore, psychiatric emergencies are sometimes only reluctantly accep ted or inadequately treated by these services. Our present contribution aim s at improving this situation. It gives a review of the main diagnostic gro ups concerned, their symptomatology and psychopathology,and offers some adv ice with regard to empathic verbal interventions and counselling in those e mergency situations.