Managing Mentally Ill Patients in Emergencies Training

Learning Outcomes

• Apply de-escalation techniques to safely manage aggressive or agitated mentally ill patients in emergency settings.
• Demonstrate the ability to conduct a rapid mental status assessment to identify acute psychiatric emergencies.
• Implement appropriate emergency interventions for common psychiatric crises such as psychosis, suicidal behaviour, and substance-induced disorders.
• Evaluate environmental and situational risks to ensure the safety of the patient, healthcare team, and bystanders.
• Communicate effectively with patients, families, and multidisciplinary team members during psychiatric emergencies.
• Analyse ethical and legal considerations, including the Mental Health Care Act of South Africa, when managing involuntary patients.

Target Audience

This course is designed for paramedics, emergency room nurses, psychiatric aides, security personnel in healthcare settings, and any first responders who may encounter mentally ill patients in crisis situations.

Prerequisites

None — open enrollment

Course Outline

Practicals

Overview

Practical sessions allow learners to practice de-escalation, safe restraint techniques, and team coordination in simulated emergency scenarios, reinforcing theoretical knowledge and building confidence.

Practical Activities

• De-escalation Role-Play — Learners practice verbal and non-verbal de-escalation techniques with actors simulating agitated patients. (1h)
• Safe Physical Restraint Techniques — Under supervision, learners practice safe manual restraint holds and team-based restraint procedures on mannequins. (1h)
• Emergency Scenario Simulation — Teams manage a simulated psychiatric emergency from arrival to handover, including assessment, de-escalation, restraint, and documentation. (1h)

Summatives

Each delegate is assessed continuously throughout the course via daily exercises, scored practical assignments, and a final summative test at the end.

Practical Assignments — 30%

Practical assignments are observed and scored against a rubric during the practical sessions. Each delegate's practical mark is averaged into a single 100% score and contributes 30% to the final total.

Daily Exercises — 20%

Every training day ends with a multiple-choice exercise scored out of 100%. The scores from each daily exercise are averaged across the duration of the course to produce a Daily Average mark, which contributes 20% to the final total.

Final Test — 50%

On the last day a final summative test is written. It is a multiple-choice paper with multiple-answer questions: each question may have more than one correct option, and a single wrong selection on a question marks the entire question wrong — no partial credit. The final test is scored out of 100% and contributes 50% to the overall mark.

Final Total

Component	Out of	Weight
Practical Assignments (rubric-scored)	100%	30%
Daily Average (multiple choice)	100%	20%
Final Test (multi-answer multiple choice)	100%	50%
Final Total	—	100%

All marks are recorded on the AATICD LMS and visible to each learner under their account.

Certificate

How it works

• Certificates are auto-generated on the AATICD LMS as soon as the marks pass the 50% threshold.
• Each certificate is a branded PDF with the delegate's name, the course title, the unit standard ID, NQF level, credits, and the date of issue.
• You can download or print your certificate from your LMS dashboard at any time after issue — there's no reissue fee and no expiry date.
• If you scored under 50% you can sit the final test again at the next scheduled session at no extra cost.

Where to find it

Sign in to the LMS, open your dashboard, and your certificates appear under My Certificates. Each entry has a View / Download button and a print option.

Training Discounts

Group discounts apply automatically — the more delegates you enrol, the greater the saving. Discounts are calculated at 3% per 5 delegates, scaling up to 40% off for 100+ delegates.

Delegates	Discount
5	3% off
10	6% off
15	9% off
20	12% off
25	15% off
30	18% off
50	30% off
75	35% off
100	40% off

3% discount per 5 delegates, up to 40% off for 100+ delegates. Contact us for a custom group quote.