Impact of Mobile Crisis Services on Emergency Department Use Among Youths With Behavioral Health Service Needs. Psychiatr Serv 2019 Oct 01;70(10):881-887
Date
06/20/2019Pubmed ID
31215355DOI
10.1176/appi.ps.201800450Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85072746574 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 26 CitationsAbstract
OBJECTIVE: Youths are using emergency departments (EDs) for behavioral health services in record numbers, even though EDs are suboptimal settings for service delivery. In this article, the authors evaluated a mobile crisis service intervention implemented in Connecticut with the aim of examining whether the intervention was associated with reduced behavioral health ED use among those in need of services.
METHODS: The authors examined two cohorts of youths: 2,532 youths who used mobile crisis services and a comparison sample of 3,961 youths who used behavioral health ED services (but not mobile crisis services) during the same fiscal year. Propensity scores were created to balance the two groups, and outcome analyses were used to examine subsequent ED use (any behavioral health ED admissions and number of behavioral health ED admissions) in an 18-month follow-up period.
RESULTS: A pooled odds ratio of 0.75 (95% confidence interval [CI]=0.66-0.84) indicated that youths who received mobile crisis services had a significant reduction in odds of a subsequent behavioral health ED visit compared with youths in the comparison sample. The comparable result for the continuous outcome of number of behavioral health ED visits yielded an incidence risk ratio of 0.78 (95% CI=0.71-0.87).
CONCLUSIONS: Using comparison groups, the authors provided evidence suggesting that community-based mobile crisis services, such as Mobile Crisis, reduce ED use among youths with behavioral health service needs. Replication in other years and locations is needed. Nevertheless, these results are quite promising in light of current trends in ED use.
Author List
Fendrich M, Ives M, Kurz B, Becker J, Vanderploeg J, Bory C, Lin HJ, Plant RAuthor
Michael Fendrich PhD Professor in the Emergency Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentChild
Community Mental Health Services
Connecticut
Crisis Intervention
Emergency Service, Hospital
Emergency Services, Psychiatric
Female
Humans
Logistic Models
Male
Mental Disorders
Mobile Health Units
Non-Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Psychiatric Department, Hospital
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Suicide
Treatment Outcome
