Prediction of multiple visits by a community mental health center's psychiatric emergency home visiting team.

Ten psychosocial characteristics of 442 patients treated by a psychiatric-emergency home visiting team were studied to determine whether or not those variables were related to further calls for emergency home visits. Changes in the patients' clinical conditions between first and second visits were also assessed. There were no significant changes between first and second visits, and only the display of bizarre behavior during the first visit was positively related to the number of subsequent visits. The implications of these findings for psychiatric-emergency team crisis intervention are discussed.