Abstract. Emergency psychiatric conditions such as acute psychomotor agitation or suicide attempt are dangerous, sometimes life-threatening conditions to both the affected person and the emergency crews. In this article, we discuss theoretical and practical training for the rapid and effective management of psychiatric emergencies by emergency staff. The purpose of this work is to present the results of a study on the preparedness of workers in emergency centers, emergency departments, and emergency mobile care for the management of an emergency psychiatric patient. The training seminar was voluntarily attended by 37 people working in the Center for Emergency Medical Care – Pleven and the Multiprofile Emergency Department at the University Hospital “Dr. Georgi Stranski” – Pleven. Their age range is from 31 to 68 years old, and the average age is 52.5 years. The study involved 10 men and 27 women. Regarding the position taken by the participants in our survey, 22 (59.46%) are physicians, 6 (16.22%) are paramedics/physician assistants, and 9 (24.32%) are nurses and midwives. In the initial survey, only 8 (21.62%) correctly indicated all emergency psychiatric conditions, (27.02%) correctly identified only 4 of them, 11 (29.72) identified only 3, and 10 (27.02%) categorized only 2 of the emergency conditions as psychiatric. After the seminar and repeating the survey, 20 (54.05%) correctly determine the emergency psychiatric conditions. With regard to the wrongly assigned emergency conditions as psychiatric, 15 (55.55%) do not indicate any, 11 (29.72%) indicate 1, 10 (27.02%) indicate 2 and only 1 (2.70%) indicate 3 conditions as emergency psychiatric without being such. Emergency psychiatric conditions are a significant group of emergency conditions requiring significant financial and human resources.

Key words: emergency psychiatric conditions, emergency medical care, training in psychiatry

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