Psychiatrische Krisenintervention

After describing the principles and structure of the psychiatric services in Bulgaria, the author goes in more detail into the organizational and administrative conditions of psychiatric crisis intervention. It is emphasized that the main basis for psychiatric crisis intervention must be the psychiatric out-patient service which includes and coordinates all service branches and works together with the non-psychiatric services. The author stresses two channels of information about crises: ‘passive’, when psychiatric services receive information from the family or non-psychiatric agencies associated with crisis interventions (e.g. general medical agencies, councelling centres, administrative authorities, etc.); ‘active’, if the dispensary itself collects information as e.g. by regular observation of registered patients, by psychiatric or general medical field investigations as may be carried out by the Prevention Department, etc.). A few ideas are also offered concerning the organization of a subsystem for crisis intervention within the entire psychiatric service delivery system.