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By Maggie Fox
Researchers reported Friday that a growing number of kids were coming to US emergency rooms in the midst of a mental health crisis. And the increases are observed among minority children, in particular.
Why, but the researchers say their discoveries are surprising. They are seeing the same trend across the country.
"It's really discouraging. Community resources for mental health, especially for young people, are extremely rare, "said Dr. Anna Abrams, pediatrician and researcher at the Children & # 39; s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.
"It's shocking, really."
Abrams is an emergency pediatric physician who studies disparities in health care at Children's.
"I have begun to see an increase in the number of mental health presentations in my clinical practice," she told NBC News.
She decided to see if the same thing was going on nationally. She reviewed data from 45 children's hospitals across the country from 2012 to 2016.
"We saw an increase of about 55% in mental health presentations over the entire period," Abrams said.
"Among white children, it was a similar number, about 48%. Then, when we looked at the non-Hispanic black population, the five-year increase was 64% and that of the Hispanic population was 77%, "she added. "There were huge differences."
Abrams and colleagues present their findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics that begins Friday.
In 2012, they found that 50.4 child visits to emergency services for 100,000 child visits related to mental health issues. In 2016, mental health accounted for 78.5 emergency visits per 100,000 children.
"When they are stratified by race and ethnicity, visits related to mental health issues in the country's emergency departments increased for non-black children and adolescents." Latinos almost twice as fast as for non-Latino children and white teenagers, "said Monika Goyal, director of emergency medicine research at Children & # 39; s.
"Access to mental health services in children can be difficult, and the data suggests that it may be even more difficult for minority children compared to non-minority youth."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also seen an increase in mental health problems, particularly major depression, across the country and among adolescents in particular.
According to the CDC, one in five children aged 3 to 17 – about 15 million – has a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder diagnosed in a given year. But only 20% of them are diagnosed or receive care.
The team found that the average age of children brought for an acute mental health crisis was 13 years.
"One of our other analyzes showed that during our study period, a non-Hispanic black child was 1.5 times more likely to report to an emergency department with an illness." mental that a white child. The numbers are staggering, "said Abrams.
Abrams said that a combination of factors is probably behind the increases.
"We can speculate, but we can not say for sure what's going on," she said. This may be due in part to the shortage of mental health professionals who can help children. There is also clearly a real increase in some mental health issues.
People also talk more openly about depression, anxiety, and other common mental health issues, which may make parents feel more comfortable asking for help from their parents. children, said Abrams. But it can be difficult to find specialized care.
"Many children never see a specialized health care provider," she said. "Very often, these children need specialized mental health care that is beyond the capabilities of a general pediatrician."
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