What is the criteria that people get put in either 72 hour holds, or psychiatric hospitals for doing?

Question

Trying to make a list of criteria people can be put in a psychiatric hospital for, the most subtle, minimum thing and the most obvious ones ?

Curious to know also if there are any trivial things that you would never really expect could get someone put into a psychiatric hospital or 72 hour hold for ?

Answer 1

It's really pretty basic.

Behavior that is dangerous (really or only potentially) to self or others can land you in the rubber room. If you appear to be rational (always a tough call in today's world), your dangerous behavior can land you in jail instead.

Dangerous to self:

A person is found wandering aimlessly, especially if they seem indifferent to the traffic around them, may be taken in for observation. A person wandering on railroad tracks (you'd be surprised how often this one happens) is almost guaranteed a free bed for a couple days.

A person responding to hallucinations walks into traffic, indifferent to it.

A person tells an examiner that they want to die, and are thinking of harming themselves.

A person is not grooming themselves, and is not eating regularly, and has no one to supervise them.

Dangerous to others:

A person believes others are trying to harm them, and tries to defend himself, usually with a psychotic overlay of bizarre and paranoid symptoms.

A person experiences "command hallucinations" believes that he or she must obey those commands to hurt or kill some other person or persons.

A person does something obviously bizarre and potentially dangerous to passers by. Waving a machete in the middle of a New York City street might get you committed. Threatening a group of members of the h**l's Angels will almost certainly get you committed. If they don't act first...

It's very much a judgment call, and the qualification of who gets to make the call can vary. It used to be that two physicians (any kind of MD, e.g., internist, allergist, proctologist or whatever) could commit for assessment. We called the commitment a 2PC (two physicians certificate). Also the director of mental health community services could commit (called a DCS commitment)  

You can therefore be committed for observation for almost anything, and you can also get away with almost anything if nobody does anything about it.

Silly little things?

A nice little old lady stayed with us for a couple of years because she stole shampoo, and would not agree that she should not have done so. She believed she owned the store, and could have whatever she wanted.

It depends who's calling the shots. Some use good judgment; some don't.

Answer 2

The reason a person can be detained for a mental health eval is because they pose an immediate danger to themselves or others. The criteria used here involves actions (took pills, cut themselves, tried to hang themselves and etc) and statements. Usually just blurting out that you want to die is not enough. A healthcare tech will follow -up with questions like, "how would you kill yourself?", in an effert to determine if the person has a realistic plan to do harm to themselves or others. Stating that you went and bought enough fertilizer to build a bomb to blow up your neighbors house, is a good way to buy yourself 72 (business) hours in a hodpital. And yes, business hours is correct, atleast here. If you get committed for 72-hours, that 7, 8-hour days in the hospital, the amount of time necessary to evaluate you.

Answer 3

Telling the EMT or police that you want to kill yourself or want to die (like right now) will do it.

Acting eradict.

Coming off of a drug or alcoholic stupor.

Where I work they are called "Legal 2000s"