Mental health emergency visits rising faster than other pediatric cases

Children in mental health crises is becoming more common in children’s hospital emergency departments, a trend that is growing far faster than all other emergency visits. File Photo by Wokandapix/Pixabay

The data revealed that mental health related emergency visits grew annually by about 8% since the baseline was established in October 2015. Meanwhile, all other visits increased by just 1.5%. Revisits for mental health emergencies rose about 6.3% annually.

The largest increases in visits were for patients with suicidal ideation or self harm, trauma disorders, eating disorders and somatic disorders. Suicidal ideation or self harm was the reason for 28.7% of mental health visits.

“The trends we observed in pediatric mental health ED visits and revisits show that the problem of increasing pediatric mental health ED visits has not abated,” the report said.

“Improved intervention services for patients with a behavioral health crisis are needed on a hospital and systems level to reduce pediatric mental health ED use and ensure access to appropriate follow-up care, with a particular focus on those patients most likely to revisit.”

The patients most likely to revisit were those with psychotic, disruptive or impulse control and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Anna Cushing, co-author of the study, said parents often bring their children to emergency departments if they have “severe behavioral problems” that they are unable to regulate.

“Families come in with their children who have severe behavioral problems, and the families really just are at their wit’s end, you know,” she said, reported by the New York Times.

“Their child’s behavior may be a danger to themselves, but also to the parents, to the other children in the home.”