Abstract
The past twenty years have seen a rapid increase in acute psychiatric symptoms in children and adolescents, with a subsequent rise in the number of psychiatric hospitalizations. This paper aims to: (a) describe the epidemiology of hospitalizations and some of the clinical and sociodemographic characteristics of pediatric patients admitted to a regional referral Complex Operative Child Neuropsychiatry Hospital Unit in Northeast Italy and (b) identify potential factors correlated with the length of hospital stay. Methods: 318 (M = 12.8 years; SD = 3.11; 72% Female) patients hospitalized for mental health disorders from 2013 to 2019. Results: Around 60% of hospital admissions occurred via the emergency room, mostly due to suicidal ideation and/or suicide attempts (24%). Affective disorders were the most frequent discharge diagnosis (40%). As for factors correlated with length of hospital stay, we found significant links with chronological age, way of hospital admission, cause of admission, discharge diagnosis, presence of psychiatric comorbidity, family conflict, and psychiatric family history. Conclusions: These results provide information about global characteristics associated with the length of psychiatric hospital stays in pediatric patients and provide a basis on which specific precautions can be hypothesized with the aim of developing more focused treatments.
Highlights
Mental health disorders affect around 15–20% of the global pediatric population, a percentage that was destined to increase [1,2] even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to more adverse mental health consequences [3]
The percentage frequencies related to the way of hospital admission show that
In a paired comparison test, we found that the number of inpatient days was greater for subjects who were admitted via the Emergency Department (M = 26.4 days), and it was shorter for subjects who were admitted following scheduled hospitalization (M = 13.5 days)
Summary
Mental health disorders affect around 15–20% of the global pediatric population, a percentage that was destined to increase [1,2] even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to more adverse mental health consequences [3]. In high-income countries, the prevalence of the most common disorders has not changed despite the increase in treatment coverage [6]. Suicide constitutes the third leading cause of death among adolescents [6]. In this age group, acute psychiatric conditions are the main cause of admission to mental healthcare services [2,7,8,9,10,11]
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