“For a very long time, there has been a culture in hospitals that emergencies are real emergencies,” says Dr. Christine M. Crawford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center. He was not involved in this research.
She said there should be mental health training throughout the hospital, “just as all medical staff are trained in how to perform CPR.” And hospitals need to be encouraged to add inpatient psychiatry, she said.
The study tracked significant changes in the types of mental health problems treated in hospitals, showing depressive disorders rising from 29.7% in 2009 to 56.8% in 2019. Better outcomes with early intervention programs and more wraparound care.
Dr. Crawford, who is also an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, said rates of suicidal behavior are a “distress indicator” in children who lack the ability to deal with stress and “big emotions.”
“When you actually talk to self-harming children who impulsively take Tylenol, they often talk about arguments with peers or disagreements with adults,” she said.
For the most part, these children have suffered from diagnosable depression for “months” without treatment. We do this on a regular basis,” she said.
