What Is "High Risk" and What Are We Actually Supposed to Do About It?

Schuyler W Henderson; Ruth Gerson; Blake Phillips

doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2019.01.016

What Is "High Risk" and What Are We Actually Supposed to Do About It?

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2019 Jun;58(6):561-564. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.01.016.

Authors

Schuyler W Henderson¹, Ruth Gerson², Blake Phillips²

Affiliations

¹ Bellevue Hospital and New York University, New York, NY. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Bellevue Hospital and New York University, New York, NY.

PMID: 31130207
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.01.016

Abstract

Regulatory agencies are increasingly taking on the important issue of effective risk assessment, risk stratification, and treatment planning for youth with psychiatric illness.¹ The Joint Commission mandates a suicide assessment for patients "who exhibit suicidal behavior or who have screened positive for suicidal ideation" followed by risk stratification: after "this assessment, patients should be classified as high, medium or low risk of suicide."² We anticipate that just as screening for depression and suicidality was initially restricted to emergency departments and inpatient units before being rolled out across all care settings, so risk stratification requirements will roll out to these other settings as well.

Publication types

Editorial

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Depression / epidemiology
Emergency Service, Hospital*
Humans
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors
Suicidal Ideation
Suicide Prevention*