Accessible Summary
What is known on the subject
Admitting children and adolescents in psychiatric inpatient units is a relatively new and still debatable practice in Egyptian society and in the entire Arab world.
What the paper adds to existing knowledge
Egyptian young people diagnosed with complex behavioural problems, such as in other parts of the world, desperately need and do get benefit from inpatient psychiatric service. The demographic and clinical characteristics of children in need for such service are not clearly different from those reported in other parts of the world.
What are the implications for practice
More should be done to spread awareness, remove obstacles, and develop more specialized inpatient units, with trained child psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses to provide best care for children and adolescents diagnosed with severe emotional and behavioural problems in Egypt, the Arab world and other developing countries in the world.
Abstract
Background
To our knowledge, this is the first study that aims to investigate the demographic and clinical correlates of admission into a specialized inpatient psychiatric unit for children and adolescents in Egypt and the Arab world.
Methods
The files of all service users who presented for care in the outpatient service for children and adolescents in Tanta University between July 2017 and December 2019 were reviewed. Of the 1,195 files reviewed, 100 patients were admitted to the inpatient unit for 133 admission episodes with an average duration of 18.5 days per episode.
Results
The most common diagnosis among admitted children and adolescents was disruptive behaviour disorder. Having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, eating disorder, or trauma‐related disorders powerfully predicted admission. Both physical and sexual abuse also predicted admission, readmission and longer duration of admission.
Conclusions
The need for admission into specialized psychiatric inpatient units for children and adolescents is comparable to that in other parts of the world. There is an urgent necessity to develop such therapeutic units across the entire Arab world with subsequent need to establish suitable training programs for mental health workers to deal with children and adolescents diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders in inpatient setting.