Psychotropic medication use for paediatric mental health patients in an emergency department

Abstract

Objective: There is paucity of evidence for psychotropic medication use in children and adolescents presenting with mental health (MH) problems to the ED. We set out to describe paediatric psychotropic medication use in the ED. Methods: We conducted a retrospective electronic medical record review of ED patients with MH discharge codes at a tertiary paediatric ED in 2018. We assessed the epidemiology and management of patients who received a psychotropic medication. We calculated the odds ratios (ORs with 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) of key demographic factors of medicated versus non-medicated MH patients. Results: During 2018 there were 1695 MH-related presentations to the ED. Of these, ..