Abstract
BackgroundThe development of child psychiatric services in China has been slow and very limited resources have been allocated to support its growth. This study set out to investigate the child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric resources currently available in top-tier psychiatric hospitals in China and the characteristics of youth patients hospitalized on an adult unit.MethodsAs part of an official national survey, 29 provincial tertiary psychiatric hospitals in China were selected. Data from 1975 inpatients discharged from these hospitals from March 19 to 31, 2019 were retrieved and analyzed.ResultsThe mean number of youth psychiatric beds was 27.7 ± 22.9 in these hospitals and 6/29 hospitals had no youth beds. There were significantly more youth beds in developed regions than in less developed regions (P < 0.05). Most of the discharged youth patients were teenagers with severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. 7.5% (149) of the 1975 discharged patients were children or adolescents, however youth beds only accounted for 3.2% (804/25,136) of all psychiatric beds. 45.6% (68) of youth patients were discharged from adult psychiatric units.ConclusionOur findings highlight the lack of adequate youth psychiatric inpatient services for children and adolescents living in China, especially in less developed regions. There is an urgent need to build more child and adolescent psychiatric units in provinces where there are none, and to increase the number of beds within the units that exist presently.
Highlights
The development of child psychiatric services in China has been slow and very limited resources have been allocated to support its growth
We found the hospitals in developed regions had significantly more child and adolescent beds (38.8 ± 21.5) and a higher percentage of youth beds (4.1%) than those in less developed regions (18.8 ± 20.4, 2.1%) (t = 2.568, df = 27, P = 0.016 and t = 2.511, df = 27, P = 0.018 respectively)
Since six hospitals had no youth beds, we excluded data from those six hospitals, and we found 43.1% (57/138) of the discharged youth patients had been discharged from an adult unit. 2.7% (42/1541) of discharged adult patients were discharged from a child and adolescent unit
Summary
The development of child psychiatric services in China has been slow and very limited resources have been allocated to support its growth. This study set out to investigate the child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric resources currently available in top-tier psychiatric hospitals in China and the characteristics of youth patients hospitalized on an adult unit. Mental disorders are common in children and adolescents. One recent meta-analysis of 41 studies in 27 countries showed the worldwide-pooled prevalence of mental disorders was 13.4% in children and adolescents [1]. Studies have shown that mental disorders in this age group are common in China, no national data are currently available. Some regional surveys showed the prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents was approximately 20% [3], similar to that of many developed countries. Studies showed psychotic disorders including schizophrenia were the most frequent diagnosis in youth inpatients [8, 9]
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