Congratulations to Éamon Jones, medical student at UCD School of Medicine, on his recently published research in the Irish Medical Journal. This research is part of the SSRA project that Éamon and the team are expanding to replicate over multiple time points.
The study is titled ‘Overlooked and Uncounted: Paediatric Psychiatry and Boarding in Ireland’ and explores the ongoing issue of children with psychiatric needs being admitted to general paediatric wards, where they often face prolonged stays and are at risk of receiving suboptimal care due to the lack of appropriate psychiatric services.
One of Eamon’s supervisors is UCD School of Medicine’s Dr Elizabeth Barrett.
Abstract
Aim:
In Ireland, there are currently more patients requiring in-patient psychiatric care than there are beds available. As a result, doctors are left with no choice but to board patients in general medical wards. Internationally, the phenomenon of admitting psychiatric patients to a nonpsychiatric setting is referred to as psychiatric boarding1,2. Psychiatric boarding can be defined as “when a patient presenting with a primary psychiatric condition is held in, or admitted to, a nonpsychiatric setting for a minimum of 18 hours while awaiting psychiatric care or admission to a psychiatric ward”3.
Methods:
A survey was created for this study and consisted of 3 sections; basic demographics, the nature of admissions and working diagnoses, and the clinicians perceived ability to provide adequate care to psychiatric patients. Consultant paediatricians were contacted from all 20 paediatric sites around Ireland and were requested to gather prospective data relating to admissions to their general medical wards between the 17th and 23rd of June 2024.
Results:
Representatives from all 20 paediatric sites in Ireland agreed to provide data for this study. Doctors indicated that 3.8% (37) of admissions to paediatric general medical wards in this timeframe were for psychiatric reasons. Though all paediatricians surveyed had prior experience managing patients with psychiatric issues, only 15% (3) stated they felt able to provide adequate care to psychiatric patients. While 3.8% of all admissions does not seem particularly high, this number represents 37 children who are not receiving the most optimal Ir Med J; June 2025; Vol 118; No. 6; P91 June 17th, 2025 care possible. Several doctors who participated in this survey stressed that data collection took place during a particularly slow week highlighting the need for multiple timepoints over the period of a year to accurately assess the issue.
Discussion:
To our knowledge, this is the first data examining the issue of psychiatric boarding in Ireland. The authors hope to expand this data by replicating this study over a number of timepoints in a 12-month period to determine the yearly prevalence of paediatric psychiatric boarding in Ireland.
References:
Read the full paper here.