Psychiatric intensive care after two years

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 421-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. O'Dwyer ◽  
B. S. Mann

The following is a descriptive study of Willoughby Ward, a psychiatric intensive care unit, opened in Parkside Hospital, Macclesfield, in July 1986. It provides a moderately secure facility for the treatment of psychiatric patients within both Crewe and Macclesfield Health Authorities. The unit has 15 beds, of which two are funded and used by Crewe area, where, unlike Macclesfield, the psychiatric unit is located in the district general hospital. Managed as a locked ward, the patients are admitted under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. As well as being mentally ill as defined in the Act, the patients were disturbed to a degree as to be unmanageable in open conditions.

Author(s):  
Stephanie Wei Ping Wong ◽  
Yew Wen Yap ◽  
Ram Prakash Narayanan ◽  
Mohammad Al-Jubouri ◽  
Ashley Grossman ◽  
...  

Summary We report our experience on managing a case of florid Cushing’s disease with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) sepsis using intravenous etomidate in the intensive care unit of a UK district general hospital. Learning points: Severe Cushing’s syndrome is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Etomidate is a safe and effective medical therapy to rapidly lower cortisol levels even in the context of severe sepsis and immunosuppression. Etomidate should ideally be administered in an intensive care unit but is still feasible in a district general hospital. During treatment with etomidate, accumulation of serum 11β-deoxycortisol (11DOC) levels can cross-react with laboratory cortisol measurement leading to falsely elevated serum cortisol levels. For this reason, serum cortisol measurement using a mass spectrometry assay should ideally be used to guide etomidate prescription.


1986 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
J J A McAleer ◽  
G J J Murphy ◽  
R H Taylor ◽  
J L C Moran ◽  
F A O'Connor

Of 2947 patients admitted to a district general hospital over an 11-year period for the management of self-poisoning, 148 (5%) required intensive care unit (ICU) treatment. There was a significant increase in the number of self-poisonings admitted each year, whereas the number requiring ICU admission did not change. Therefore the proportion of patients requiring ICU admission fell significantly over the study period ( P< 0.0005). Of 898 patients admitted from 1973 to 1977, 62 (6.9%) were treated in ICU. Of 2049 patients admitted from 1978 to 1983, 86 (4.2%) required ICU treatment. It is felt that this trend is explained by a rise in parasuicidal self-poisonings. The impact of change in drug availability is evident in the significant reduction in ingestion of sedative barbiturates.


BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S95-S95
Author(s):  
Aoife Nechowska ◽  
Theophilus Samuels ◽  
Sameer Ranjan

AimsThis audit aimed to analyse the patient population coming into East Surrey Hospital's Intensive Care Unit from 1993 to 2019.BackgroundThe Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a report in August 2019 on ages most likely to die by suicide and drug poisoning. Their data showed that Generation X were dying by this method in greater numbers than other age groups. This is in contrast with data from 1990s for England and Wales which showed people in their 20s were most likely to die by suicide or poisoning. This audit set out to look at admission data from an intensive care unit (ICU) in a district general hospital in Surrey over a similar period of time.MethodPatient records from 1993 to September 2019 were accessed using the WardWatcher database. To access the maxim number of admissions qualifying under the aims, the database was accessed by searching under “admission comments” for: overdose, self-harm, poison, suicide. These reports were downloaded and the lists were checked against each other to delete duplicates. This gave a total of 331 patients. The data were analysed by year, according to age, gender, season, psychiatric diagnoses and previous overdose attempts. Their outcomes were checked against recorded deaths. There was not enough information to investigate method of overdose.ResultA total of 331 patient records were accessed. The youngest patient was 15 years old, the oldest was 84 years old. The age dataset was non-parametrically distributed with the median age of 43 years (IQR 33-51 years). The age distributions for each year appeared symmetrical but total numbers for each year were small. The population was split as 191 female (58%) and 141 male (42%). 16 patients died on the ICU on admission with an overdose, 5% of total numbers, of which 19% had a previous overdose attempts and 44% had a psychiatric diagnosis. The youngest death was 22 and the oldest was 81 years old. The average age was 47 years, with the spread consistent in the 2000s and 2010s.ConclusionThe results from East Surrey Hospital's ICU do not reflect the analysis from the ONS. The mean age for each year has remained similar. Numbers for the audit were small and admission criteria to the ICU prescribe that the patient be critically unwell and may not be indicative of the total admissions to a district general hospital.


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