Survey of the demographic characteristics of patients requiring restraints in a psychiatric emergency service.

This paper examines the previously studied topic of the prevalence of uncontrollable behavior in psychiatric emergencies, using the need for restraints as an indicator, and seeks to discover demographic characteristics that were associated with patients needing restraints. The variables considered are sex, referral source, marital and financial status, race, education, diagnosis, age, and disposition. The findings of this survey were compared with those of another survey, which was conducted with a different population in a different community context, using tendency toward assault as an indicator of uncontrollable behavior. Although the two surveys were not strictly comparable, some interesting points were raised regarding differences and similarities.