MAPS: Mental Health Admissions to Paediatric Wards Study - WP1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
MAPS: Mental Health Admissions to Paediatric Wards Study
IRAS ID
322013
Contact name
Lee Hudson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UCL Institue of CHild Health
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2023/03/96 , Data protection office
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 7 months, 10 days
Research summary
Children and young people (CYP) presenting with a mental health (MH) crisis are frequently admitted to general acute inpatient wards as a place of safety. Previous work has demonstrated that up to 6% of general paediatric inpatient beds were occupied by CYP due to MH crisis, and during the pandemic, there is evidence that both numbers of mental health paediatric admissions have increased, and that paediatric teams are experiencing challenges delivering safe care. There have been longstanding concerns about the quality of care to support these patients in this setting, but also significant cost implications for these admissions. There is limited published data on CYP with MH crisis admissions to general paediatric wards including total numbers, factors associated with admissions such as availability and quality of community mental health provision, outcomes for CYP admitted, and the impact of admissions on CYP, parents and professionals caring for them.
The MAPS project will use mixed methods across 4 work packages to investigate these trends and generate a Theory of Change (ToC) model to positively impact the quality of care for children and young people (CYP) presenting in mental health crises. The 4 work packages will:
1)Describe current burden and recent trends in mental healthcare activity in England
2)Investigate factors influencing decisions to admit CYP to paediatric wards for primary MH problems (WP2).
3)Explore views and experiences of CYP, families and health professionals during admissions to paediatric wards (WP3).
4)Synthesise data with a stakeholder group to create a ToC model for agreed impacts to inform service provision (WP4)This IRAS application relates only to work package 1 (WP1) of this project,(hereafter “this project”) which will be limited to secondary analyses of hospital administrative and population-level data.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/NW/0192
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jun 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion