The purpose of the study is to compare the effects of using or not using a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in an acute psychiatric department.
The main aim of the study is to compare the effects of using or not using a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in an acute psychiatric department.The acute ward of Østmarka psychiatric department, St. Olavs Hospital has a PICU separated from the rest of the ward. The PICU is separated with a locked door. Under two different conditions at different times all patients evaluated to be in need of PICU were admitted to the PICU. In the first condition the doors inside the PICU and between the rest of the acute ward and PICU were closed or locked. In the second condition the doors inside the PICU and the door between the PICU and the rest of the acute ward were either removed or held permanently open. In the second condition the patients thus were admitted to a PICU unit not using PICU principles. The patients were evaluated with different rating scales at admittance, day three and at discharge from PICU.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
118
psychiatric acute care as usual
Østmarka Psychiatric Department, St. Olavs Hospital
Trondheim, Norway
Length of stay in Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
Time frame: 3 days
Symptoms of psychopathology
assessed by Broset Violence Checklist (BVC), a six-item observer-rated scale scoring behaviours. Higher scores predict imminent violence in psychiatric inpatients
Time frame: 3 days
Violent or threatening incidents
recorded with the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R),
Time frame: 3 days
Therapeutic steps and nurses' interventions
coded daily on a 23-item checklist
Time frame: 3 days
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