As he spoke, more children were waiting at the hospital’s psychiatric emergency services six floors below. PES (pronounced Pez) is the first stop for children and adolescents when they arrive at the Western Psych Emergency Department after security, handing over their cell phones and bags. To fill out the form, you must use a soft, bendable plastic pen to avoid hurting yourself or others. (For the same reason, the metal toilet seat in the bathroom is non-removable.) TV shows cartoons, cooking shows, and Hallmark movies. The only phone available is wall mounted. The patient often spends hours in one of the two pediatric waiting rooms and may wear a hospital gown after being transferred from another medical center. They sit in blue and orange plastic chairs around a table with board games, or in leather chairs that fold out into a single bed. Some patients stay overnight or even several nights when the vendor’s ward is not available.
PES psychiatrists interview children and their parents (or other caregivers) separately to determine whether the patient needs to be hospitalized or whether a referral to outpatient care, including emergency services, is sufficient. determine whether Most teenagers who experience suicidal thoughts do not need to be hospitalized, and most do not (about 2,800 committed suicide in 2021). Psychiatrists weigh the potential protective factors of hospitalizing children against the reality of limited beds and the fact that hospitalization can exacerbate anxiety and keep adolescents out of mental health care altogether. I have to put it on.
Medical professionals use the term “suicidality” to describe a range of thoughts and feelings, from passive death wishes of not wanting to wake up and wanting to go to sleep, to more active thoughts, and in the most extreme cases, suicide attempts and death. Used to refer to actions. . While much is known about some of the causes of suicide, including mood disorders, child abuse, and drug use, experts do not understand why their numbers have increased overall over the past decade. do not have. Social media can deprive children of sleep (sleep deprivation is associated with increased suicidal thoughts) and increase feelings of loneliness and abandonment (social media affects children, especially those who are marginalized). ), despite providing a useful community for children who feel they are As of 2020, the pandemic may be another factor.
General condition can also promote anxiety, anger, fear and even suicidal thoughts and behaviors among certain populations. For example, black children who face trauma and persistent racism, or transgender children who are forced to use the wrong bathroom at school. Feeling alienated, invisible and alone. Suicide rates in both populations have increased in recent years. “Ignoring social and family circumstances is dangerous,” says Brent, who has tracked the rise in youth suicide for years.
“It’s painful to be in this field and keep seeing things go from bad to worse,” he says.
Salena Binig Spends Most of her working hours are dedicated to helping teens feel understood and well enough, and not hurt or suicidal. She is one of her ten therapists at her STAR Center at UPMC, co-founded by Brent 37 years ago. Patients get there by various routes, including referrals from therapists, psychiatrists, and Western psychologists. Parents can also call STAR (which stands for Services for Teens at Risk) to schedule their child’s exam appointment.
