Use of ‘acute behavioural disturbance’ in mental health records: differences over time and by ethnicity in a London NHS mental health Trust

BACKGROUND: Acute behavioural disturbance (ABD) is a controversial descriptor for presentations of severe agitation, aggression and physiological compromise. AIMS: To characterise the use of ABD-related terms in the electronic record of a large UK provider of mental health services during 2006–2021. METHOD: The free text of all records relating to patient contacts with acute assessment mental health teams during 2006–2021 were searched for references to ABD. Identified text was coded for context of use and presence of clinical features of ABD described in the literature. Poisson regression was used to analyse differences in rates of use over time and between demographic groups. RESULTS: Mentions of ABD increased by an average of 1.12 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08–1.17) per year, with the greatest increase from 2019 to 2021. Black people were more than twice as likely as White people to have reference to ABD included in their assessments (rate: 2.4/1000 (95% CI 1.8–3.1) in Black people compared with 1.0/1000 (95% CI 0.8–1.3) in White people). The clinical characteristics in notes describing a current presentation of ABD rarely corresponded to those included in UK medical guidelines on ABD. CONCLUSIONS: The term ABD in mental health notes appears to often, but not exclusively, be a synonym for severe agitation and conveys little meaning beyond this. However, the term's connection to a literature emphasising the high risk of physical health collapse and need for urgent treatment means that its disproportionate use in Black people may contribute to existing racial inequalities in the use of coercive measures during crisis presentations.