Renown Health says its emergency rooms are seeing an increase in child mental health issues.
“We see a whole slew of different mental health visits from very severe depression, suicidality, all the way to people who are psychotic and having some severe psychotic breaks,” said Dr. David Benaron, Renown Emergency Physician.
Two issues specifically are proving to be most prominent.
“We’ve been seeing higher rates of anxiety and depression amongst youth,” Dr. Benaron said. “Some will blame a lot of different things. I think social media has been something that has been very concerning to us. So, we’re doing our best to support our youth with resources both here in the emergency department at an outpatient level as well as, as best we can do, at an inpatient level as well.”
Benaron recommends that parents limit social media and time on the internet as much as possible and do more activities outside.
Getting inpatient versus outpatient care ultimately depends on the severity of the condition.
Outpatient care involves a lot of at-home treatment, which Dr. Benaron says should be the first method if your child is starting to feel depressed or anxious.
It’s when things get worse that they should go to the ER.
“What I would say is when things start to feel out of control,” the doctor said,” “when they feel fearful for their child’s safety and they feel fearful for their ability to care for their child, that is where we proudly step in and support them in that process and get their child to where they need to be gotten.”
When deciding which avenue to take for your child, there are two main roads: psychology and psychiatry.
“I think it is a wonderful interplay between the two,” Dr. Benaron said. “My mother is a therapist, so I have strong feelings that communicating about feelings and a process is really important. But I also have a ton of friends who are in psychiatry, and when that is needed, you know, we don’t take it lightly. People are not giving medications until they really, really need them.”
For kids who are dealing with a psychotic break, the hospital does have the authority to place them under a 72-hour hold, but doctors say they only do that if they absolutely have to.
“The last resort would be when we really feel that the parent and the child are really not working well together to the point where the decision may put the child’s life at risk,” the doctor said. “And in that situation, we as health care providers are really going to do everything in our power to protect the child. And if that, at any cost, we will do that here.”
Dr. Benaron says that this is a subject that hits close to home.
“I am a parent of two young children, a six and a three-year-old. And I have to say personally, the new anxiety and depression components of our children has affected me very deeply, empathically,” he said. “And I just encourage our parents in our community to really support our children to really understand what they need.”
In terms of wait times, Renown says they try to adjust staffing to fit the volume, with the influx of mental health cases.
Renown says that they do believe the new Washoe Behavioral Health Center, being built on the site of the former West Hills Hospital, which is expected to open in two years, will help them in taking care of kids.
“That was a big loss to our community,” the doctor said. “It’s really exciting to hear that our community is investing in these resources to support our children. So, we here at Renown are excited to have that resource because we want to get our children into the treatment facility as quick as possible so they can get the definitive care they need while they are here.”
Dr. Benaron says that there are some other resources that could help in the short term.
“More inpatient beds is always very helpful,” he said. “You know, we’re at a point here where the per capita beds is maybe not where we’d like it to be. So, it’s really exciting to hear about some new developments in terms of increasing beds.”