Arkansas crisis stabilization unit guests: Baseline characteristics from a longitudinal cohort study

Crisis Stabilization Units (CSUs) are short-term residential facilities that provide care to people experiencing mental health crises, seeking to reduce reliance on local emergency departments and avoid unnecessary jail detention. Despite these intentions, there is little foundational literature to support research on CSU efficacy and a dearth of research on the sociodemographic characteristics and specific needs of CSU patients. Here, we recruited and surveyed 208 participants admitted to one of two focal Arkansas CSUs on their sociodemographic characteristics, justice-involvement, mental health, substance use, and health care utilization. Results revealed that participants were mostly unemployed (68.16%), low-income (72.34%), and experiencing insecure housing (33.33%). They reported extensive justice-involvement (85.57%), high rates of clinically significant mental illness symptom severity (77.00% for anxious symptoms; 78.33% for depressive symptoms; 79.40% for traumatic stress symptoms), and recent substance use (73.34%). Recent engagement with other medical services was common, though more participants reported visiting an emergency department (42.23%) than did receiving outpatient medical care (26.73%). While research on CSU patient outcomes is needed, our results indicate that CSUs have the potential to be an essential part of the health care continuum by serving a population with multiple, intersecting needs and addressing a deficit in community-based crisis care. Continued investigation of community-based crisis intervention services is critical to bridging the gap between vital behavioral health resources and the populations in need of them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).