Characteristics of Pediatric Psychiatric Emergency Population in a Mental Health Hospital

We aimed to investigate the characteristics of children and adolescents presented to the psychiatric emergency service (PES) of a mental health hospital. Medical records of patients under 18 years of age were reviewed for the first psychiatric emergency visit during a 1-year period. The mean age was 15.82 years and 65.8% (n=711) were female. The most presenting symptoms were suicidal ideation (21.0%; most for girls) and homicide/violence toward others (20.7%; most for boys). The mean duration of symptoms was 265.36 days. The most common diagnoses were conduct disorder (16.7%; most for boys) and conversion disorder (15.5%; most for girls). Of the patients, 51.7% never used any mental health services before. The rate of prior use of mental health service was significantly higher in patients presenting with homicide/violence toward others and self-harm and lower in patients presenting with anxiety and somatic symptoms (p