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TUESDAY, May 8, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Medicaid-insured children are at increased risk for mental health diagnoses and psychotropic prescriptions after hospitalization for an injury compared with pre-hospitalization, according to a study published online May 7 in The Journal of Pediatrics<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Kylie M. Bushroe, from The Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues compared the rates of mental health diagnoses and psychotropic prescriptions in the 12 months pre- and post-injury at a pediatric trauma center (2005 to 2015) among 2,208 children enrolled in a managed-Medicaid program.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the rate of mental health diagnoses pre-injury was 95.9 per 1,000 person-years, compared with 156.7 per 1,000 post-injury (rate ratio [RR] 1.63). Post-injury, children ages 0 to 4 years with burns were more likely to have mental health diagnoses, after adjustment for race and ethnicity (adjusted RR [aRR] 8.56), as were children with head injuries (ages 0 to 4 years: aRR, 3.87; ages 5 to 9: aRR, 3.11; ages 10 to 14: aRR, 2.17; and ages 15 to 18: aRR, 5.37). The rate of psychotropic prescriptions was 121.7 per 1,000 person-years pre-injury versus 310.9 per 1,000 post-injury (RR, 2.55)<\/p>\n
“We identified increased mental health diagnoses and psychotropic prescriptions in children following hospitalization for injury,” the authors write.<\/p>\n