Results indicate that community-based mobile crisis services resulted in a lower rate of hospitalization than hospital-based interventions. Consumer characteristics were also associated with the risk of hospitalization.

Almost all patients used the computer services to some extent, but there seems to be a threshold after which the use of the services had a more positive impact.

Objective: To examine the impact of community-based mobile crisis services on postcrisis community-based mental health service use and user characteristics related to likelihood of postcrisis service use. Method: Differences in use of postcrisis mental health services and timing between a community-based intervention cohort and a matched hospital-based cohort were assessed using a Cox proportional hazards model. Results: A mobile crisis intervention consumer was 17% more likely to receive community-based mental health services within 90 days after the crisis event. Controlling for prior service use, mobile crisis intervention consumers with no prior mental health service use were 48% more likely to receive community-based mental health services within 90 days after the crisis event than a consumer from the hospital-based intervention cohort. Consumers more likely to use postcrisis services were African American, homeless, experiencing acute problems, previous mental health service users, and severely mentally disabled. Conclusions: Implications for social work practice are discussed.In reviewing the need for and role of psychiatric emergency services, Mollenhauer and Kaminsky (1996) stress the importance of these services being intimately connected to the rest of the community mental health 731

These data suggest that expansion of information services to households will not leave the poor and the undereducated population groups "behind." They will use computer services, though such services may not have an impact on their health status or cost of care.

No abstract