Evaluation and Management of Psychiatric Emergencies in Children

Development of guidelines for hospital care of suicide attempts in adolescence

This article aims to describe a qualitative and quantitative study of the construction and validation of guidelines for hospital care of adolescents with suicide attempts. The methodological approach involved an integrative literature review with thematic content analysis of 27 articles, which generated 3 categories: assessment of suicidal behavior in the context of the emergency department; intervention in suicidal behavior, and hospital multidisciplinary team. The content of these categories was the basis for the construction of an instrument with 15 statements about the performance of adolescents in suicidal crisis assisted in the hospital setting. This instrument was applied with 20 healthcare professionals selected from two hospital institutions in southern Brazil, who acted as judges/evaluators of the proposed statements. The content of the 15 statements was validated as guidelines through the Percentage of Concordance Calculation and the Score Calculation. The constructed guidelines may help multidisciplinary hospital teams when facing adolescents with suicide attempts, to base their conduct on criteria that guide actions of reception, assessment, intervention, and referral.

Development of guidelines for hospital care of suicide attempts in adolescence

Abstract This article aims to describe a qualitative and quantitative study of the construction and validation of guidelines for hospital care of adolescents with suicide attempts. The methodological approach involved an integrative literature review with thematic content analysis of 27 articles, which generated 3 categories: assessment of suicidal behavior in the context of the emergency department; intervention in suicidal behavior, and hospital multidisciplinary team. The content of these categories was the basis for the construction of an instrument with 15 statements about the performance of adolescents in suicidal crisis assisted in the hospital setting. This instrument was applied with 20 healthcare professionals selected from two hospital institutions in southern Brazil, who acted as judges/evaluators of the proposed statements. The content of the 15 statements was validated as guidelines through the Percentage of Concordance Calculation and the Score Calculation. The constructed guidelines may help multidisciplinary hospital teams when facing adolescents with suicide attempts, to base their conduct on criteria that guide actions of reception, assessment, intervention, and referral.

Introducing an innovative model of acute paediatric mental health and addictions care to paediatric emergency departments: a protocol for a multicentre prospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION

Children and youth with mental health and addiction crises are a vulnerable patient group that often are brought to the hospital for emergency department care. We propose to evaluate the effect of a novel, acute care bundle that standardises a patient-centred approach to care.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Two paediatric emergency departments in Alberta, Canada are involved in this prospective, pragmatic, 29-month interventional quasi-experimental study. The acute care bundle comprises three components, applied when appropriate: (1) assessing self-harm risk at triage using the Ask Suicide-Screening Questionnaire (ASQ) to standardise the questions administered, enabling risk stratification; (2) use of the HEADS-ED (Home, Education, Activities/peers, Drug/alcohol, Suicidality, Emotions and behaviour, Discharge Resources) to focus mental health evaluations for those who screen high risk on the ASQ; and (3) implementation of a Choice And Partnership Approach to enable shared decision making in care following the emergency department visit. The overarching goal is to deliver the right care at the right place and time for the patients. The study design involves a longitudinal collection of data 12 months before and after the introduction of the bundle and the use of quality improvement strategies such as Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles during a 5-month run-in period to test and implement changes. The primary study end-point is child/youth well-being 1 month after the emergency department visit. Secondary outcomes include family functioning, child/youth well-being at 3 and 6 months, satisfaction with emergency department care, and health system outcomes (hospital admissions, length of emergency department stays, emergency department revisits).

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study is registered at www.ClinicalTrials.gov and has received ethics and operational approvals from study sites. The results of the study will be reported in accordance with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology statement. Results will be shared broadly with key policy and decision makers and disseminated in peer-reviewed academic journals and presentations at conferences.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT04292379.