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Telepsychiatry increases mental health care access for children in rural areas
Recent findings indicated severe geographical barriers to child and adolescent psychiatry services among rural youth, highlighting the efficacy of telepsychiatry for this patient population.
“One of the biggest health care issues we as a nation face is a physician shortage in pediatric and adolescent behavioral health,” Mirna Becevic, PhD, of Missouri Telehealth Network, University of Missouri, said in a press release. “The Council on Graduate Medical Education, a committee of the Department of Health and Human Services, advised in 1990 of the anticipated need for 30,000 child and adolescent psychiatrists by the year 2000. However, today only about 8,300 physicians specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry. This shortage not only affects youth in rural locations, but children in all underserved areas.”
Mirna Becevic
To assess efficacy of telehealth in a demographically and geographically diverse state, researchers compared zip codes of youth receiving child and adolescent telepsychiatry services at the University of Missouri to child and adolescent psychiatrists’ practice locations. Data were derived from the Cognos/Analyzer management analyst system. Study participants had a mean age of 15.9 years.
During the study period, there were 662 appointments among 179 patients with 19 different zip codes.
Participants utilizing child and adolescent telepsychiatry services were from various parts of Missouri and did not appear clustered in particular regions, according to researchers.
The majority of in-person and telehealth providers were located in urban areas along the I-70 corridor in Missouri-Kansas (n = 13), Columbia (n = 24) and St. Louis (n = 42).
Forty-two providers were located in other parts of the state, specifically in the southwest, southeast and northeast.
When telehealth was removed from analysis, distance between patients and providers ranged from 1.14 miles to 301.6 miles. The average distance between a patient and provider was 22.2 miles.
“Our findings indicate that there is limited access to child and adolescent psychiatric services in our state,” Becevic said in the release. “More importantly, our study illustrates how remote populations have severe barriers to access. The mental health shortage, especially in rural areas, is not a new discovery. However, this study highlights the severity of the need for mental health services in our state, especially for children and adolescents.” – by Amanda Oldt
Disclosure: Please see the full study for a list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.