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Objectives:

Describe the epidemiology of pediatric psychiatric-related visits to emergency departments participating in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network.

Methods:

Retrospective analysis of emergency department presentations for psychiatric-related visits (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, codes 290.0-314.90) for years 2003 to 2005 at 24 participating Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network hospitals. All patients who had psychiatric-related emergency department visits aged 19 years or younger were eligible. Age, sex, race, ethnicity, insurance status, mode of arrival, length of stay, and disposition were described for psychiatric-related visits and compared with non-psychiatric-related visits.

Results:

Pediatric psychiatric-related visits accounted for 3.3% of all participating emergency department visits (84,973/2,580,299). Patients with psychiatric-related visits …