TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2019//
TI  - Prevalence and clinical and coercion characteristics of patients who abscond during inpatient care from psychiatric hospital
JO  - Indian journal of psychological medicine
A1  - Gowda, Guru S.
A1  - Thamby, Abel
A1  - Basavaraju, Vinay
A1  - Nataraja, R.
A1  - Kumar, Channaveerachari Naveen
A1  - Math, Suresh Bada
SP  - 144
EP  - 149
VL  - 41
IS  - 2
N2  - BACKGROUND: Patients absconding from psychiatric hospitals pose a serious concern for the safety of patients and public alike. Absconding is associated with an increased risk of suicide, self-harm, homicide, and becoming "missing" from society. There are only scarce data on profile and outcome of the absconding patients in India. AIMS: To study the prevalence and describe the clinical and coercion characteristics of patients who abscond during inpatient care from an open ward. <br><br>METHODOLOGY: "Absconding" was defined as patients being absent from the hospital for a period of more than 24 h. This is an analysis of absconding patients out of the 200 admitted patients at a tertiary psychiatric hospital. Descriptive statistic was used to analyze the demographic, clinical, and perceived coercion profile and outcome. <br><br>RESULTS: The absconding rate was 4.5 incidents per 100 admissions. Most of these patients were males, from a nuclear family, admitted involuntarily, belonging to lower socio-economic status, diagnosed with schizophrenia or mood disorder with comorbid substance use disorder and had absent insight. The MacArthur Perceived Coercion Scale score was 4.58 (±1.44), and 80% of the absconded patients felt subjective coercive experiences in most domains at admission. Out of the 9 absconded patients, 2 patients had completed suicides and one continued to remain untraceable. <br><br>CONCLUSION: The absconded patients were males; admitted involuntarily; diagnosed with schizophrenia, mood disorder, and comorbid substance use disorder; and had absent insight and high perceived coercion. Absconding patients had the tendency to harm themselves and wander away from home.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0253-7176
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_188_18
ID  - ref1
ER  -