BALTIMORE -- Three of every four children whose mothers bring them to a pediatric emergency department for non-urgent complaints screen positive for mental illness, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study.

The study has important implications for ensuring that children and their families do not fall through the mental healthcare safety net, according to Jacqueline Grupp-Phelan, MD, the study's main author. Dr. Grupp-Phelan, an Emergency Medicine physician at Cincinnati Children's, will present the study at 10:15 am Monday, May 6, at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore.

Screening positive for a mental health disorder does not necessarily mean that these children have a mental illness but that they are "at high risk of serious mental health issues," says Dr. Grupp-Phelan. "The pediatric emergency department (ED) may be the only interaction mothers have with a health care provider. If we do not take advantage of the ED visit to identify and treat families with mental health problems, these children may fall through the cracks."

Dr. Grupp-Phelan found that 25 percent of children screened positive for four or more mental health disorders. These could include anxiety, depression conduct disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other mental health disorders.

In addition, 18 percent of mothers screened positive for either anxiety or depression. Among these mothers, 92 percent of their children screened positive for a mental health disorder, putting them "at even a greater risk for a positive screen and multiple mental disorders," says Dr. Grupp-Phelan.

To conduct the study, Dr. Grupp-Phelan administered a validated mental health screening test over a two-year period to 600 mothers and their children who visited Cincinnati Children's emergency department for non-urgent complaints. In a previous study, Dr. Grupp-Phelan administered a mental-health screening test only to mothers and found that a large percentage of mothers with mental illness find it difficult to take care of their children.

---Pediatric Academic Societies

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