Thread by @tylerblack32

Thrilled to announce that with @QdQwerty and colleagues, we have published very timely description of pre-pandemic mental health. Congratulations to Dr. Alison Lee for the hard work on the publication, and proud to be a part of it.

Let's take a look!

academic.oup.com/pch/advance-ar…

/1

In this study, we took a look at the types of mental health presentations for kids over a 3y period. We used the HEARTSMAP, a reliable tool for helping emergency departments document psychosocial assessments and help with treatment planning.

jpeds.com/article/S0022-…

/2

In total, we looked at the HEARTSMAP data for 1,530 kids.

Broken down by the HEARTSMAP domains:

PSYCHIATRIC: 40% with severe concerns
SOCIAL: 27% moderate/severe concerns
YOUTH HEALTH: 22% moderate/severe concerns

/3

The HEARTSMAP triggered recommendations for psychiatric consultation in about half of the patients. Within, suicidal ideation was the majority concern.

Crisis response teams were needed in about 1/3 of those cases, & child and youth mental health teams another third.
/4

While the crisis teams had response times within a 72-hour window, the majority (60%) of the youth mental health teams had wait times of over a month.

Wait times for MH programs:
< 1 week 7%
1-4 weeks 13%
1mo to 3mo: 31%
3mo to 6mo: 18%
>6 mo: 9.3%

/5

We hope our study highlights how complex ER presentations are. Many of our cases have a mixture of health, social, and psychiatric concerns and rapid access given emergency presentation is obviously key. Months of wait for a child can be an entire school year.

/6

If you've been following me , you know that I've been talking about PREPANDEMIC conditions that need correction (we can't 'go back to normal'), it's so important that we don't lose sight of this.

/fin

If you are an Emergency Department or a Clinical Team and you are interested in the HEARTSMAP, check it out here:

openheartsmap.bcchr.ca