Occult Psychosocial Impairment in a Pediatric Emergency Department Population

摘要

Objectives: We compared the degree of psychosocial impairment in patients seen in the emergency department (ED) for acute complaints with that of patients presenting with chronic complaints using the Youth Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-Y). Our hypothesis was that patients with multiple visits for chronic complaints (93 health care visits for the chief complaint during the previous 12 months) would be more likely than patients with acute complaints to test positive for psychosocial issues.