Psych CASC / OSCE · Emergency psychiatry — absconding and missing patients
Explain abscond response and engage family — CASC communication station
MRCPsych/FRANZCP-style CASC: calm transparent communication about a missing inpatient, collateral for location and risk, police threshold explanation, avoid false reassurance, invite questions, plan for return contact.
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Station brief
Format. Communication station, approximately 7–10 minutes active time after reading. You are the psychiatry registrar on the acute ward. [1]
Candidate instructions. The examiner plays the missing patient's partner. Explain that the patient is currently unaccounted for, what the team is doing, and why. Obtain collateral about likely locations, recent stressors, suicide or violence risk, substances, and phone contacts. Agree how you will keep the partner informed. Avoid false reassurance ("they always come back") and avoid blaming the partner. Do not invent precise local statute numbers. [1][2]
References3ShowHide
- [1]Hunt IM, Windfuhr K, Swinson N, et al. Suicide amongst psychiatric in-patients who abscond from the ward: a national clinical survey BMC Psychiatry, 2010.PMID 20128891
- [2]Bowers L, Jarrett M, Clark N, et al. Absconding: why patients leave J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs, 1999.PMID 10633672
- [3]Bowers L, Simpson A, Alexander J Real world application of an intervention to reduce absconding J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs, 2005.PMID 16164511