A study published in JAMA found that most adolescent patients brought to the emergency room repeatedly were children who were not harming themselves but showed "aggressive behavior that was too much for their caregivers to handle," The New York Times reported Dec. 27.
Anna Cushing, MD, pediatric emergency room physician at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and one of the authors of the study, told the publication that the rate of revisits reveals emergency care is not enough.
The study found that patients with psychotic disorders were 42 percent more likely to revisit the emergency department within six months, and patients with impulse control disorders were 36 percent more likely. Those with disorders like autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder were 22 percent more likely. Individuals who required medications to subdue them were 22 percent more likely to revisit than patients who did not.
The study notes that in many cases, these patients were given sedatives or other drugs to subdue them. It surveyed 308,000 mental health visits across 38 hospitals between 2015 and 2020 and found that pediatric mental health ER visits had increased by 43 percent.
"It's just putting a Band-Aid on the problem," Christine Crawford, MD, a pediatric psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center, told the Times. "They go back home and they're still waiting for that appointment to meet with a therapist."
Read the full study here.