Impact of Psychiatric Nurses in a Liaison Role on Mental Health Care in Emergency Room: A Systemic Review

Background: Mental illness affects about 26.2 percent of the people in the United States in a 12 month period and has a life time prevalence of about 46 percent. This implies that a large number of patients depend largely on the emergency services among various other avenues for their mental health needs. This has led to the exploration of utilizing physician assistants, social workers and psychiatric nurses in emergency room in a liaison role to provide mental health services to patients. Description: There are very few studies published to examine the effectiveness of implementing psychiatric liaison nursing in the ED. The studies that are published regarding the use of a psychiatric nurse in a liaison role, describe various conditions like duration, job description and research methodology. It is important to consider the cumulative evidence in this area in a structured manner to enable administrators and managers to understand the positive and negative impacts of this strategy to deal with the increasing need for emergency mental health services. This article is a systemic review of the current evidence about the impact of a psychiatric nurse in the emergency room on various parameters such as patient satisfaction, staff perception and efficacy indicators.