Psychiatric inpatient beds for youths in China: data from a nation-wide survey

• Published in: BMC psychiatry 2020-08, Vol.20 (1), p.398-398, Article 398
• Main Authors: Geng, Feng, Jiang, Feng, Rakofsky, Jeffrey, Liu, Tingfang, Liu, Yuanli, Liu, Huanzhong, Tang, Yi-Lang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult; Age; Bipolar disorder; Child; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Children; Children & youth; China; Hospital patients; Hospitalization; Hospitals; Hospitals, Psychiatric; Humans; Inpatients; Jurisdiction; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - epidemiology; Mental Disorders - therapy; Mental health services; Patients; Provinces; Psychiatric; Psychiatric hospitals; Psychiatry; Regions; Schizophrenia; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers; Youth
• ISSN: 1471-244X; 1471-244X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12888-020-02802-x

The development of child psychiatric services in China has been slow and very limited resources have been allocated to support its growth. This study set out to investigate the child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric resources currently available in top-tier psychiatric hospitals in China and the characteristics of youth patients hospitalized on an adult unit. As part of an official national survey, 29 provincial tertiary psychiatric hospitals in China were selected. Data from 1975 inpatients discharged from these hospitals from March 19 to 31, 2019 were retrieved and analyzed. The mean number of youth psychiatric beds was 27.7 ± 22.9 in these hospitals and 6/29 hospitals had no youth beds. There were significantly more youth beds in developed regions than in less developed regions (P