Characteristics of adolescents hospitalised in adult psychiatric units. Retrospective study in the largest psychiatric hospital in France

Although psychiatrists working with adolescents know that sometimes they need to be hospitalised in emergency, few studies have described the hospitalisation of adolescents in adult psychiatric wards. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of adolescents hospitalised in adult psychiatric wards (characteristics, gender comparison, subtypes).

We conducted a monocentric retrospective study in the largest psychiatric hospital in France. All patients aged 15 to <18 years hospitalised in adult psychiatric wards were included, with different variables: socio-demographic and family information, history of inpatient / outpatient treatment, clinical data (like ICD-10 diagnoses, care pathway before / after hospitalisation…).

We included 332 hospitalisations (70 % girls), representing 2.8 % of all psychiatric hospitalisations. For 37 hospitalisations (11.1 %), this was the first psychiatric contact; for 54.2 %, patients had no previous psychiatric hospitalisation, for 87.3 %, patients had previous outpatient treatment. Mood disorders was the diagnosis for 47 % of the admissions, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation accounted for 69 % of the clinical situations leading to hospitalisation. Boys and girls differed significantly on many variables. Cluster analyses revealed two subgroups: cluster 1 patients (62 %) more frequently were girls, had previous hospitalisations in child psychiatry, came from home, had suicide attempts / suicidal ideation, had personality disorders, whereas cluster 2 patients (38 %) more frequently had substance use disorders, psychotic episodes, clastic crisis / hetero-aggression, longer hospital stays. Emergency admission of an adolescent with psychiatric issues to an adult psychiatric ward is not uncommon, especially in the context of a suicidal crisis or psychotic episode. Our results suggest the need for establishing unscheduled hospital beds for such adolescents.