Migrants and psychiatric urgencies: the experience of a psychiatric ward

Abstract

The Authors report the data collected about the foreign patients, hospitalized in the Psychiatric Ward of the Santa Maria della Misericordia Hospital in Perugia, in the period of time 1 January – 31 December 2012.
We have analyzed some items such as the socio-demographic and the clinical aspects, the reason for the hospitalization, the characteristics of the discharge program, then compared with the same items about the Italian patients, hospitalized in the same period of time.
We have taken in consideration the cultural identity and we evaluated the cultural factors related to the psycho-social environment of origin, in order to study the foreign population.