Citation

Reid G, Stewart SL, Zaric GS, Carter JR, Neufeld RW, Tobon JI, Barwick M, Vingilis ER. Adm. Policy Ment. Health 2014; 42(6): 737-747.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, greid@uwo.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10488-014-0609-6

PMID

25403258

Abstract

Criteria to define an episode of care in children's mental health services are needed. Various criteria were applied to 5 years of visit data from children 4-11 years (N = 5,206) at their first visit to 1 of 3 children's mental health agencies. A minimum of 3 visits with 180 days between episodes optimized agreement with other dates (e.g., telephone intake assessment) marking the start and end of an episode, and clinician-rated number of episodes. Grouping visits into episodes provides a clearer representation of how services are distributed over extended periods of time, facilitating research and enhancing accuracy in service planning.

Language: en