Patients with psychiatric emergencies transported by an ambulance in an urban region.

This paper studies the use of an ambulance service in the case of psychiatric emergency referrals. A cross-sectional design was used to compare the patients brought in by an ambulance with all other psychiatric emergency referrals. The sociodemographic and clinical characteristics as well as the referral pattern of both groups of patients are compared. Results show that an important proportion of patients brought in by an ambulance can be described as high risk referrals. However, for another group of referrals the ambulance is used for other reasons. The possibility of using alternative social services in these cases are discussed.