Services for adolescents with psychiatric disorders: 12-month data from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent

Collaborative care for adolescents with depression in primary care: a randomized clinical trial

IMPORTANCE

Up to 20% of adolescents experience an episode of major depression by age 18 years yet few receive evidence-based treatments for their depression.

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether a collaborative care intervention for adolescents with depression improves depressive outcomes compared with usual care.

DESIGN

Randomized trial with blinded outcome assessment conducted between April 2010 and April 2013.

SETTING

Nine primary care clinics in the Group Health system in Washington State.

PARTICIPANTS

Adolescents (aged 13-17 years) who screened positive for depression (Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item [PHQ-9] score ≥10) on 2 occasions or who screened positive and met criteria for major depression, spoke English, and had telephone access were recruited. Exclusions included alcohol/drug misuse, suicidal plan or recent attempt, bipolar disorder, developmental delay, and seeing a psychiatrist.

INTERVENTIONS

Twelve-month collaborative care intervention including an initial in-person engagement session and regular follow-up by master's-level clinicians. Usual care control youth received depression screening results and could access mental health services through Group Health.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The primary outcome was change in depressive symptoms on a modified version of the Child Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R; score range, 14-94) from baseline to 12 months. Secondary outcomes included change in Columbia Impairment Scale score (CIS), depression response (≥50% decrease on the CDRS-R), and remission (PHQ-9 score <5).

RESULTS

Intervention youth (n = 50), compared with those randomized to receive usual care (n = 51), had greater decreases in CDRS-R scores such that by 12 months intervention youth had a mean score of 27.5 (95% CI, 23.8-31.1) compared with 34.6 (95% CI, 30.6-38.6) in control youth (overall intervention effect: F2,747.3 = 7.24, P < .001). Both intervention and control youth experienced improvement on the CIS with no significant differences between groups. At 12 months, intervention youth were more likely than control youth to achieve depression response (67.6% vs 38.6%, OR = 3.3, 95% CI, 1.4-8.2; P = .009) and remission (50.4% vs 20.7%, OR = 3.9, 95% CI, 1.5-10.6; P = .007).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Among adolescents with depression seen in primary care, a collaborative care intervention resulted in greater improvement in depressive symptoms at 12 months than usual care. These findings suggest that mental health services for adolescents with depression can be integrated into primary care.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01140464.

Common and costly hospitalizations for pediatric mental health disorders

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Inpatient pediatric mental health is a priority topic for national quality measurement and improvement, but nationally representative data on the patients admitted or their diagnoses are lacking. Our objectives were: to describe pediatric mental health hospitalizations at general medical facilities admitting children nationally; to assess which pediatric mental health diagnoses are frequent and costly at these hospitals; and to examine whether the most frequent diagnoses are similar to those at free-standing children's hospitals.

METHODS

We examined all discharges in 2009 for patients aged 3 to 20 years in the nationally representative Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) and in the Pediatric Health Information System (free-standing children's hospitals). Main outcomes were frequency of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification-defined mental health diagnostic groupings (primary and nonprimary diagnosis) and, using KID, resource utilization (defined by diagnostic grouping aggregate annual charges).

RESULTS

Nearly 10% of pediatric hospitalizations nationally were for a primary mental health diagnosis, compared with 3% of hospitalizations at free-standing children's hospitals. Predictors of hospitalizations for a primary mental health problem were older age, male gender, white race, and insurance type. Nationally, the most frequent and costly primary mental health diagnoses were depression (44.1% of all mental health admissions; $1.33 billion), bipolar disorder (18.1%; $702 million), and psychosis (12.1%; $540 million).

CONCLUSIONS

We identified the child mental health inpatient diagnoses with the highest frequency and highest costs as depression, bipolar disorder, and psychosis, with substance abuse an important comorbid diagnosis. These diagnoses can be used as priority conditions for pediatric mental health inpatient quality measurement.