Since the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, there has been a rapid increase in the availability and utilization of psychiatric emergency services [1,2,3]. This expansion is one manifestation of a basic change in philosophy regarding the delivery of mental health services from confinement of the severely mentally ill in large state hospitals to treatment in less restrictive community mental health centers. The census of patients in mental hospitals across the nation has declined steadily from a peak of 559,000 in 1955 to 193,000 in 1978 [4]. However, this decrease has not been accompanied by adequate alternative sources of treatment [5], and many formerly institutionalized patients require rehospitalization during periods of decompensation. As a result, emergency psychiatric facilities have assumed a more important role in the management of severely disturbed patients and often serve as the "revolving door" through which such patients are repeatedly channeled into other segments of the community 's mental health resources [6].