Recognition of attachment difficulties and developmental trauma is the responsibility of all paediatricians

The interRAI Child and Youth Suite of Mental Health Assessment Instruments: An Integrated Approach to Mental Health Service Delivery

Various biological, social, psychological, and environmental factors impact children and youth living with mental health problems across their lifespan. To meet the wide-ranging challenges of mental illness, service system integration is needed to improve efficiencies and reduce fragmentation. Unfortunately, the mental health system has been plagued by the lack of coordination across services. There is a general consensus that mental health service delivery must ensure a child or youth's needs are addressed in a collaborative, coordinated, and seamless manner. A key element to successful integration is the development of a comprehensive standardized screening and assessment system. Numerous assessments have been developed to assess child mental health and functioning, but they typically have a very narrow focus with limited use and utility. Not only does this reduce the ability to take a life course perspective to mental health, but this uncoordinated approach also results in redundancies in information collected, additional resources, and increased assessor burden for children, youth, and their families. The interRAI child and youth mental health assessment suite was developed in response to the need for an integrated mental health system for young persons. This suite includes screening and assessment instruments for in-patient and community settings, emergency departments, educational settings, and youth justice custodial facilities. The instruments form a mental health information system intentionally designed to work in an integrated fashion beginning in infancy, and incorporate key applications such as care planning, outcome measurement, resource allocation, and quality improvement. The design of these assessment tools and their psychometric properties are reviewed. Data is then presented using examples related to interpersonal trauma, illustrating the use and utility of the integrated suite, along with the various applications of these assessment systems.

Adverse childhood experiences-household stressors and children's mental health: a single centre retrospective review

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of reported 'household stressor' adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in families of children presenting with neurodevelopmental, behavioural or emotional difficulties and to determine whether family vulnerabilities, individually or cumulatively, were associated with particular clinical symptomatology.

DESIGN

Retrospective chart review followed by statistical analysis of family stressors and clinical symptomatology.

SETTING

A community paediatric clinic in Australia.

PARTICIPANTS

All 267 children who attended an initial paediatric appointment during 2018.

RESULTS

162 (60.7%) children had been exposed to one or more household stressor ACEs, including 116 (43.4%) children exposed to parental mental illness. Behavioural disturbance occurred in 144 (53.9%) children and externalising behaviours (other than attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) were more frequent than internalising behaviours. Externalising and internalising behaviours were associated with individual and cumulative household stressor ACEs. Most other symptomatology apart from genetic/neurological conditions, autistic symptoms and some developmental delays appeared to be partially associated with ACEs.

CONCLUSION

Household stressor ACEs were common, frequently occurred concurrently, and were associated with much of the symptomatology, in this cohort. Parental mental illness was the most prevalent stressor and behavioural disturbance the most prevalent symptomatology. These findings may have implications for clinical practice and service provision.

Audit of paediatrician recognition of children's vulnerability to harm at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne

AIM

Vulnerable children can be defined as those at risk of child abuse and neglect and long-term adverse health, neurodevelopmental and behavioural outcomes. This study examined whether a cohort of paediatricians and advanced trainees at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, recognised children's vulnerability.

METHODS

We reviewed the clinical note in the electronic medical record (EMR) for 425 new patients presenting to five paediatric clinics between 1 July 2017 and 31 December 2017. We examined paediatrician documentation of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), risk and resilience factors, referrals for intervention to improve psychosocial well-being and the application of 'vulnerable child' alert flags in the EMR to indicate vulnerability to harm. Children were deemed vulnerable if the paediatrician explicitly stated it in the EMR, if the child had a 'vulnerable child' alert placed in their record or had an appropriate referral for management of neurodevelopmental trauma.

RESULTS

Of the original cohort, 8% was documented as vulnerable, 21% had a referral for intervention and 2% had a 'vulnerable child' alert. Overall, paediatricians infrequently documented ACE, risk and protective factors. The odds of identifying vulnerability increased with each added risk factor recorded (odds ratio (OR) 2.6, P < 0.001, 95% confidence interval (1.9-3.5)), with an ACE score was >4 (OR 72, P < 0.001 (14.3-361)) and decreased with each added protective factor recorded (OR 0.6, P < 0.001 (0.5-0.8)).

CONCLUSION

Paediatricians infrequently document ACE, risk and protective factors and rarely 'flag' children's vulnerability to harm. Identification of the vulnerable child is correlated with documentation of risk and resilience factors at the initial consultation.