An investigation on psychiatric referrals from the police and an exploration of the experiences of nurses caring for police referred admissions to a psychiatric hospital in NSW, Australia : a mixed methods study

Abstract

Police are a major source of referral to psychiatric hospitals under Section 22 of the NSW Mental Health Act (2007). The aims of this two phase sequential mixed method study were to determine whether people referred by the police and admitted to a mental health service in NSW were different and what those differences were, in comparison to referrals from other sources; and to explore nurses' experiences of caring for patients referred by the police. The mixed methods study involved two sequential phases. In the first phase of the study quantitative data on the demographic, diagnostic and admission outcomes was collected from the medical records of 200 patients admitted to the psychiatric hospital during a six month period in 2002, to examine statistical differences between 101 police referrals and 99 referrals from other sources.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English