Emergency psychiatric services: what interface is needed to access care? Statistical study into the activities of an emergency ward from 1999 to 2003.Emergency reception is a core issue in the question of access to psychiatric care. Reception facilities are not restricted to an institution, but are rather an interface between the various types of demand and the array of possible courses of treatment in psychiatry. At the specialised hospital at Saint-Jean-de-Dieu in Lyon, the emergency ward and department for medical information inventoried arrivals in their emergency reception over a period of 5 years (1999-2003) asking doctors to fill in a form giving precise details on the profile of patients dealt with. The data compiled represents 14,689 emergency situations corresponding to 6,568 patients. Different patient profiles were established revealing differing demands on emergency care. In emergency reception a crisis reception service and chronicity reception service coexist. Emergency reception is a crucial interface for patients of the first category (crisis profile) to access care, but a “substitute” structure for the second group (chronic). This raises the idea of creating reception areas specifically directed at chronic mental distress.