Grant: Operating Grant - Secondary Analysis of Databases

Emergency Departments (EDs) are a critical mental health care service point for children and youth. EDs provide stabilization in an acute emergency and act as a portal to follow-up care. It may be that EDs are becoming more and more utilized for mental health care because of problems with access to and availability of community-based children's mental health services. Children and youth who do not receive appropriate care due to system deficits will be vulnerable to illness deterioration and may experience acute mental health emergencies. Our team has conducted some of the largest studies examining ED use by children and youth for mental health emergencies in Alberta. Using Alberta's Ambulatory Care Classification System (ACCS) and linked population-based databases, we identified several groups of children and youth who were more vulnerable than others for repeatedly using the ED for mental health emergencies and waiting longer for follow-up care after their ED visit. These groups were: (1) youth aged 15 to 17 years, (2) children and youth from families receiving social assistance, (3) children and youth with anxiety disorders, and (4) children and youth with substance misuse/abuse problems. We would now like to use statistical surveillance to better understand patterns of health resource use by these four groups. This surveillance is important because it can give us an accurate and comprehensive perspective of pediatric emergency mental health service across Alberta. For example, our surveillance may identify areas in Alberta with children and youth who have a greater severity of mental illness and require more ED care or that more crisis care has been sought by children and youth because there is less availability of other mental health services. Based on our findings, we will work with key Alberta health care decision-makers and policy-makers to develop recommendations for mental health service resources and how they are allocated in the province.