Police officers' views of absconding from mental health units in Victoria, Australia

Patients regularly abscond from mental health units and at times the consequences for patients and for others can be serious. The police are involved with absconding events, but are rarely considered in the mental health literature. In most jurisdictions, the police can take missing person reports f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of mental health nursing 2014-04, Vol.23 (2), p.145-152
Main Authors: Martin, Trish, Thomas, Stuart D. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
abscond
Attitude
Commitment of Mentally Ill
Communication
Cooperative Behavior
Discharged
Escape Reaction
Health education
Health information
Humans
Interdisciplinary Communication
Involuntary
Liaison
Medical personnel
Mental disorders
Mental Disorders - nursing
Mental Disorders - psychology
Mental health
Mental health care
mental health service
Mental health services
Missing persons
Motivation
Narratives
Nurses
Nursing
Patients
Police
Police officers
policing
Psychiatric Department, Hospital
Psychiatric-mental health nursing
Qualitative Research
Victoria
Welfare
Workload - psychology
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Summary:Patients regularly abscond from mental health units and at times the consequences for patients and for others can be serious. The police are involved with absconding events, but are rarely considered in the mental health literature. In most jurisdictions, the police can take missing person reports for involuntary patients whose whereabouts are unknown and there are genuine concerns for their safety or welfare. Those people remain active cases for the police until located. This paper presents extracts of 25 police officers' narratives from a qualitative research project. Officers viewed absconding as a regular event, and workload burden that was exacerbated when mental health staff rarely initiated any search for the absconded patient and abdicated responsibility too quickly to the police. The officers were concerned about communication with mental health services and reported that information about the absconded patient could be inadequate or not given to police, and police often were not informed when the patient was found or discharged. Improved liaison and cooperative working that promote effective communication could strengthen police and mental health nursing collaboration and ensure better outcomes for patients.
ISSN:1445-8330
1447-0349
DOI:10.1111/inm.12036