Urine drug screens in pediatric psychiatric patients

摘要

I note with interest the chart review of I Shihabuddin et al1 on the usefulness of urine drug screening in 539 adolescent patients presenting to a pediatric emergency department with behavioral and psychiatric complaints. This adds to the literature on the lack of utility of drug screening in emergency medicine.2 Emergent drug screening does not alter the immediate management of patients2 (including children3"5) in the emergency department. This has also been shown for patients presenting with acute psychiatric symptoms.6"8 Notably, 1 of these studies was a randomized controlled trial8 performed by a psychiatry team comparing urine drag screen versus no urine drug screen cohorts.