Pediatric Mental Health Emergencies in Emergency Care Systems
Summary
Children and adolescents presenting with acute mental health crises place growing demands on emergency care systems worldwide. Common presentations include self-harm, severe anxiety, agitation, eating disorders and suicidal ideation. Emergency departments (EDs) and prehospital services often represent the first point of contact, yet many are not equipped with dedicated paediatric mental health resources or evidence-based protocols. Challenges include prolonged wait times, variable triage practices, limited availability of child and adolescent psychiatry specialists, and fragmented care transitions to community or inpatient services. Recent years have seen the emergence of multidisciplinary teams, rapid telepsychiatry assessments and behavioural de-escalation strategies within EDs. Nevertheless, gaps remain in standardised training for emergency clinicians, in seamless pathways to follow-up care and in data collection for younger paediatric age groups. Effective management demands an integrated model that spans prehospital assessment, acute ED intervention and coordinated referral pathways into community or inpatient mental health services. Such models must balance safety, timely risk assessment and family-centred care, while acknowledging regional variations in resource availability. Addressing these needs is essential to reduce repeat presentations, improve outcomes and alleviate systemic pressures on emergency care settings.
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Pediatric Mental Health Emergencies in Emergency Care Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in pediatric mental health emergencies in emergency care systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Behavioural health emergency: An acute mental or behavioural disturbance requiring immediate medical or psychiatric attention.
Emergency department triage: The process of prioritising patients for assessment and treatment based on urgency and severity.
Prehospital management: Clinical interventions and assessments provided by emergency medical services before hospital arrival.
Integrated care pathway: A multidisciplinary, evidence-based plan detailing essential steps in the management of a specific clinical problem to improve outcomes.
References
- Admission to acute medical wards for mental health concerns among children and young people in England from 2012 to 2022: a cohort study. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health (2025).
- Prehospital Management of Pediatric Behavioral Health Emergencies: A Scoping Review. Cureus (2023).
- Models of integrated care for young people experiencing medical emergencies related to mental illness: a realist systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (2022).
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