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Emergency Room Psychiatric Consultations: Socio-demographic and Clinical Differences Between Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

Objectives

Recent years have witnessed an increase in pediatric emergency room (ER) visits for crisis mental health care in Canada and the USA, with a high proportion driven by youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study aims to characterize the socio-demographic and clinical profiles of autistic children presenting to an ER for crisis assessment and compare them to those of neurotypical children also presenting to the ER in crisis.

Methods

Twenty-five children with ASD and 286 without the disorder were compared in terms of age, sex, parent marital and socio-economic status, psychosocial functioning, suicidal behavior, psychiatric diagnosis, and reasons for ER consultation.

Results

Youth with ASD showed a higher frequency of male sex (X2 (1, N = 303) = 11.97, p < .001), younger age (t(303) = − 3.08, p = .002), increased suicidal behavior (X2 (4, N = 261) = 14.99 p ≤ .005), less co-existing diagnosis of substance use disorder (X2 (1, N = 303) = 3.91 p = .048), and greater prevalence of behavioral disorders as the reason for ER consultation (X2 (1, N = 301) = 41.25 p < .00).

Conclusions

An understanding of the socio-demographic and clinical profiles of the autistic population will help clinicians identify the needs of this group seeking crisis intervention, improve management, orient service delivery, increase prevention, and inform governmental organizations of the need to provide service accessibility.

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Data Availability

All data for this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

TV: designed and executed the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. DM and BG: collaborated with the design and assisted with the data analyses and editing of the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tania Viviani.

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Ethics Approval

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Viviani, T., Morin, D. & Greenfield, B.J. Emergency Room Psychiatric Consultations: Socio-demographic and Clinical Differences Between Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders. Adv Neurodev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41252-023-00384-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41252-023-00384-9

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