Hospital based psychiatric emergency services: a guide to service delivery and clinical best practices.

Hospital based psychiatric emergency services play an integral role in the initiation of mental health and psychiatric service delivery worldwide. Whenever possible, hospital based psychiatric emergency services should be delivered in accordance to best practice standards. Unfortunately, no such standards exist internationally in the case of hospital based psychiatric emergency services. This paper represents an attempt to rectify this problem. International mental health and psychiatric literature pertaining to hospital based psychiatric emergency services was reviewed and a guide to service delivery and clinical best practice was generated.