Cargando…
Prevalence and Clinical and Coercion Characteristics of Patients who Abscond during Inpatient Care from Psychiatric Hospital
BACKGROUND: Patients absconding from psychiatric hospitals pose a serious concern for the safety of patients and public alike. Absconding is associated with an increased risk of suicide, self-harm, homicide, and becoming “missing” from society. There are only scarce data on profile and outcome of th...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
2019
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6436412/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30983662 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_188_18 |
Sumario: | BACKGROUND: Patients absconding from psychiatric hospitals pose a serious concern for the safety of patients and public alike. Absconding is associated with an increased risk of suicide, self-harm, homicide, and becoming “missing” from society. There are only scarce data on profile and outcome of the absconding patients in India. AIMS: To study the prevalence and describe the clinical and coercion characteristics of patients who abscond during inpatient care from an open ward. METHODOLOGY: “Absconding” was defined as patients being absent from the hospital for a period of more than 24 h. This is an analysis of absconding patients out of the 200 admitted patients at a tertiary psychiatric hospital. Descriptive statistic was used to analyze the demographic, clinical, and perceived coercion profile and outcome. RESULTS: The absconding rate was 4.5 incidents per 100 admissions. Most of these patients were males, from a nuclear family, admitted involuntarily, belonging to lower socio-economic status, diagnosed with schizophrenia or mood disorder with comorbid substance use disorder and had absent insight. The MacArthur Perceived Coercion Scale score was 4.58 (±1.44), and 80% of the absconded patients felt subjective coercive experiences in most domains at admission. Out of the 9 absconded patients, 2 patients had completed suicides and one continued to remain untraceable. CONCLUSION: The absconded patients were males; admitted involuntarily; diagnosed with schizophrenia, mood disorder, and comorbid substance use disorder; and had absent insight and high perceived coercion. Absconding patients had the tendency to harm themselves and wander away from home. |
---|