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

Abstract

Background 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. Method As part of a official national survey, 29 most representative provincial tertiary psychiatric hospitals in China were selected. Data of 1975 inpatients discharged from these hospitals from March 19 to 31, 2019 were retrieved and analyzed. Results The mean number of youth psychiatric beds was 27.7±22.9 in these hospitals and 6/29 hospitals had zero youth beds. There were significantly more youth beds in developed regions than in less developed regions (P<0.05). Most of discharged youth patients were teenagers with severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. 7.5% (149) of 1975 discharged patients were youth while youth beds only accounted for 3.2% (804/25136) of all psychiatric beds. 45.6% (68) of youth patients were discharged from adult psychiatric units. Conclusion Our findings highlight the lack of adequate youth psychiatric inpatient services for children and adolescents living in China, especially in less developed regions. There is an urgent need to build more child and adolescent psychiatric units in provinces where there are none, and to increase the number of beds within the units that exist presently.