2012 Volume 24 Issue 4 Pages 342-348
Children that visit the child and adolescent psychiatric unit often suffer psychiatric disorders including developmental disorders, physical complaints and behavioral problems. General hospitals are able to differentiate somatic disorders and provide treatment, and since there is little resistance to consultation, the services in child and adolescent psychiatric units are in high demand. However, at present, few psychiatric units in general hospitals provide child and adolescent psychiatric care. At the Yokohama City University Medical Center, an outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric unit has been established as a specialty outpatient clinic that provides acute inpatient psychiatric care to children in the same closed ward as adults. The main diagnoses of outpatients according to the ICD-10 are often neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (F4), and behavioral and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence (F9). On the other hand, the main diagnoses of inpatients other than F4 are often eating disorders (F5) and psychotic disorders (F2). Inpatients are often older than outpatients, with predominant symptoms including behavioral problems, nutritional disorders and psychopathological symptoms, which have little difference to the neurological manifestations that mandate hospitalization for adults. Even general hospitals that do not have a child and adolescent psychiatric ward can often accommodate child and adolescent psychiatric patients. We believe that the psychiatry ward in general hospitals can be expanded to include child and adolescent psychiatric services through staff gaining experience with child and adolescent psychiatric treatment and multidisciplinary collaboration.
