Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; and Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; and Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia
Bright Opoku Ahinkorah
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia; and School of Public Health, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
James Rufus John
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; and Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia
Patrick Hawker
Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia; and Mental Health Team, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Australia
Febe Brice
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia
Teresa Winata
Academic Unit of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychiatry Services (AUCS), South Western Sydney Local Health District and Ingham Institute, Australia; Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Australia; and Infant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (ICAMHS), South Western Sydney Local Health District, Australia
Michael Bowden
Child and Youth Mental Health, New South Wales Ministry of Health, Australia; Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Australia; and Department of Psychological Medicine, Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, Australia
Background Brief intervention services provide rapid, mobile and flexible short-term delivery of interventions to resolve mental health crises. These interventions may provide an alternative pathway to the emergency department or in-patient psychiatric services for children and young people (CYP), presenting with an acute mental health condition. Aims To synthesise evidence on the effectiveness of brief interventions in improving mental health outcomes for CYP (0–17 years) presenting with an acute mental health condition. Method A systematic literature search was conducted, and the studies’ methodological quality was assessed. Five databases were searched for peer-reviewed articles between January 2000 and September 2022. Results We synthesised 30 articles on the effectiveness of brief interventions in the form of (a) crisis intervention, (b) integrated services, (c) group therapies, (d) individualised therapy, (e) parent–child dyadic therapy, (f) general services, (g) pharmacotherapy, (h) assessment services, (i) safety and risk planning and (j) in-hospital treatment, to improve outcomes for CYP with an acute mental health condition. Among included studies, one study was rated as providing a high level of evidence based on the National Health and Medical Research Council levels of evidence hierarchy scale, which was a crisis intervention showing a reduction in length of stay and return emergency department visits. Other studies, of moderate-quality evidence, described multimodal brief interventions that suggested beneficial effects. Conclusions This review provides evidence to substantiate the benefits of brief interventions, in different settings, to reduce the burden of in-patient hospital and readmission rates to the emergency department.
