---
title: "Psych News Alert: Emergency Room Diagnosis May Reduce Incidence of Self-Injury"
description: Emergency room recognition of mental disorders can reduce the number of repeat cases of deliberate self-harm, according to a report in yeste...
---

 7/31/13 12:00 AM

# Emergency Room Diagnosis May Reduce Incidence of Self-Injury

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Emergency room recognition of mental disorders can reduce the number of repeat cases of deliberate self-harm, according to a report in yesterday’s *AJP* [In Advance](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1722048). Researchers in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University lead a study that assessed the effectiveness of emergency department (ED)diagnosis of psychiatric disorders among patients treated for intentional self-injury. Data came from the files of 5,567 Medicaid recipients aged 21 to 64, who visited the ED for deliberate violent or nonviolent self-harm. Patients’ medical records were evaluated for repeated self-harm events and psychiatric hospital admission 30 days after index ED visit. 

The results showed that nearly 10% of the patients returned to the ED for deliberate self-harm within 30 days after initial hospital visits for the same issue. Incidence of repeat self-harm visits was inversely proportional to the ED's recognition of mental disorders—mainly bipolar and anxiety disorders—regardless of the precedent psychiatric diagnosis. Approximately 13.6% of the self-injury visits were followed by psychiatric hospitalization within the 30-day period. Diagnosis of mental disorders by the ED decreased the likelihood of psychiatric hospitalization by 4.4%, compared with that of undiagnosed patients.

Lead author Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., told *Psychiatric News* that "many emergency departments do not have access to mental health professionals...they focus on treating medical injury rather than underlying psychiatric disorders." He is confident that including a mental health focus on ED treatment for intentional self-harm may prevent repeated self-injury and hospitalization and reduce suicide risk.

Read more about deliberate self-harm in *Psychiatric News* [here](http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=1096602) and in *The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Suicide Assessment and Management, Second Edition* [here](http://www.appi.org/SearchCenter/Pages/SearchDetail.aspx?ItemId=62414).

(Image:Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com)

[psychiatry](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/psychiatry), [emergency room](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/emergency-room)

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