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Inpatient treatment can be an incredibly valuable experience. However, it's always hard to part with your children, even if it's for a matter of weeks or months. It's normal to be nervous about seeking residential or inpatient treatment for a child. Families often have questions about whether inpatient psychiatric care is the right fit for their child and how hospitalization works for behavioral health concerns. So, how does inpatient care for children work, and is it effective for children with ADHD?
In this article, we'll discuss the role of inpatient psychiatric care for kids, how it works, and whether inpatient mental health services are effective for kids with ADHD. Then, we'll talk about how to find a treatment center for your child and what to expect while your child's in treatment.
What Is Inpatient Psychiatric Care?
Inpatient psychiatric care is a form of treatment used for a range of mental and behavioral health concerns. During inpatient treatment, a person sleeps, bathes, eats, and lives at a treatment facility full-time. An inpatient or residential treatment program can be beneficial for those who require a high level of support. While a child is in inpatient mental health care, they are able to work with a treatment team daily, engage in a variety of helpful activities, and focus on goals in a safe space with medical professionals nearby 24/7.
How Does It Work?
Once you find a treatment center, the first step is usually an intake assessment or evaluation. During an intake assessment, a child psychiatrist or another mental health professional will ask about your child's personal mental health history, current symptoms, family history, and other potentially important pieces of information. Often, in inpatient mental health services, treatment professionals work with clients and their families to determine treatment goals.
Most treatment centers take a multidisciplinary approach to care, meaning that they will use a combination of different methods to ensure that children receive well-rounded, holistic (meaning whole-person) treatment for their symptoms.
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Are Inpatient Mental Health Services Effective For Kids With ADHD?
There are many effective outpatient treatment options for kids with ADHD. Usually, ADHD is addressed with medication, lifestyle, behavior therapy, and other interventions, such as occupational therapy. With that in mind, inpatient mental health care isn't typically used to address ADHD symptoms alone.
That said, inpatient treatment can be highly effective for children with co-occurring psychiatric disorders or behavioral health concerns that affect their daily life but aren't improving in an outpatient setting.
Comorbidities seen in those with ADHD that might lead to inpatient treatment include but are by no means restricted to the following:
Conduct disorders
Conduct disorders are very prevalent behavioral health concerns among kids with ADHD. If a child's behavior is hard to manage or improve through outpatient treatment, a higher level of care may be ideal. That way, children receive consistent supervision and care on hospital grounds, allowing them to focus fully on symptom reduction, coping skills, and other goals with their treatment team.
Autism spectrum disorder
Like ADHD, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not a mental illness. Instead, it's a neurodevelopmental disorder. Some children receive inpatient care for autism spectrum disorders so that they can address symptoms with more support than they would via outpatient services.
Depressive disorders
Depression is more prevalent in children and adolescents with ADHD. As with most mental health conditions, depressive disorders can range in severity. Some children with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders attend inpatient treatment when outpatient services aren't enough.
Schizophrenia
While it's not the most common comorbidity, it's more likely that a person with ADHD will live with schizophrenia when compared to the general population. Schizophrenia and related disorders sometimes require inpatient treatment to get symptoms under control.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders are hard to overcome. Inpatient services are often worthwhile for children with eating disorders because there is an on-site clinical team present at all times. Hospitalization or inpatient treatment distances children and adolescents from behaviors that affect their health negatively and helps them enter a new daily routine while addressing underlying concerns.
Substance use disorders
The field of child and adolescent psychiatry has seen an uptick in substance use disorders, such as alcohol use disorder, in recent years. Like with eating disorders and other forms of mental illness, inpatient treatment or hospitalization for substance use disorders provides patients with 24/7 support and distance from triggers.
Positive outcomes are also seen in children who receive inpatient psychiatric care for posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and other conditions.
Finding An Inpatient Facility For Your Child
Even among facilities that treat the same mental health concerns, every treatment center and treatment team will differ. When you look for an inpatient treatment center for your child, you want to get information on what concerns (e.g., specific mental disorders) the center works with, what approaches they use, and what beliefs are held by the treatment center. That way, you can feel confident about the care your child gets. You can find an inpatient facility for your child by:
Searching online
A web search is a great way to start looking into inpatient mental health treatment for kids and adolescents. Often, a treatment center will have contact information and insurance information on its website. The website will usually cover information such as the age group and conditions they treat, what a day in treatment looks like, and what families can expect. Almost always, when you contact a treatment center via phone or their contact form, they'll be able to verify insurance coverage for you if applicable.
Calling your insurance company
Call the phone number on the back of your health insurance card and ask about inpatient psychiatric care for the mental health concern your child's experiencing. They should be able to give you names of treatment centers that accept your insurance.
A provider recommendation
Many parents start the process of pursuing inpatient treatment for a child by contacting the child's doctor to ask for a referral or recommendation. Pediatricians, psychiatrists, therapists, and other professionals your child works with may be able to give you a recommendation for inpatient centers.
Patients in crisis who go to the emergency room for mental health services may be able to get a placement for and transfer to inpatient care in some cases.
What To Expect When Your Child's In Treatment
Your child's treatment will be catered to their needs, age group, and any other relevant factors. Even so, there are standard elements you can expect. Often, inpatient behavioral or mental health treatment involves the following components.
Individual psychotherapy
Individual psychotherapy involves meeting with a therapist, psychologist, counselor, or social worker one-on-one. Individual psychotherapy in an inpatient treatment center is very similar to one-on-one therapy in an outpatient setting. Therapists and other professionals might use different modalities based on a child's needs.
Family therapy
Family therapy is helpful for many clients and their families and, like individual therapy, can take different forms. In family therapy, members of a family unit work with a therapist, psychologist, counselor, or social worker together.
Assuming that your child's treatment center provides family therapy, you can expect to visit the treatment center and meet with a therapist and your child for sessions. In these sessions, a mental health professional will help your family address challenges, get education on a child's disorder, or work on other goals.
The family members involved in family therapy will differ by person and could include grandparents, parents, siblings, and others. Treatment centers acknowledge the fact that every family structure is different, and family therapy is something you can engage in no matter what your family looks like.
Group therapy
In group therapy, clients work with a therapist, psychologist, counselor, or social worker in a group setting. Similar to individual or family therapy, various modalities can be used in group therapy sessions. Some groups are process groups, whereas others focus on taking in new knowledge (e.g., helpful coping skills).
Recreation activities
Recreation is an imperative part of inpatient treatment for people of all ages, including kids, teens, and adults. Every treatment center is different, but common recreation activities in inpatient mental health care for kids include yoga, music, art, community outings, and nature activities.
Education support
If children are in school, they will usually pursue education on-site while they are in a treatment center. That way, children receive support while staying up-to-date with school during hospitalization.
Medication management
Medication management can be a critical part of both inpatient and outpatient treatment. A child psychiatrist may see your child, or you and your child, for medication management purposes while your child's in inpatient psychiatric care. Medication management involves finding a medication regimen that works best for a client. In inpatient treatment settings, medical staff will provide children with their medication at the intended times.
Preparing For Discharge
As you prepare for your child's discharge from inpatient treatment, ensure they have continued mental health support in place. Some kids move down to an intensive outpatient treatment program after their time in an inpatient treatment center. Outpatient treatment usually involves a time commitment of 20 hours per week or less. Partial hospitalization programs can be more intensive.
Other times, a child will leave with a treatment plan that is not necessarily connected to a treatment center; they may have a treatment team of their own composed of mental health professionals such as a therapist or counselor and a child psychiatrist. Regardless of what's right for your child, this plan is usually built as a child prepares to discharge from inpatient treatment.
Remember that inpatient treatment can improve and even save lives. By the time children and adolescents are discharged from inpatient mental health care, families should have new knowledge and skills to support their kids.
Takeaway
When children and adolescents are admitted to inpatient treatment services, they get support around the clock from multidisciplinary teams of clinicians and develop important skills they can use long after treatment. Inpatient treatment can be beneficial and even life-saving for children and adolescents experiencing mental or behavioral health concerns like depression, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders.
However, hospitalization is not usually used to address ADHD alone. Approaches used to address symptoms of ADHD in child-adolescent psychiatry most often involve medication management, therapy, and other forms of treatment a child receives on an outpatient basis. If a child has a co-occurring disorder, they may benefit from inpatient treatment.
Families often wonder what will happen when they pursue inpatient mental health treatment for children and adolescents. Most of the time, the process starts with clinicians who administer an assessment or evaluation to determine a patient's needs and treatment goals.
During treatment, kids and adolescents work with clinicians and engage in various helpful activities. Children should leave a hospital or inpatient treatment setting with a plan for after-care and continued mental or behavioral health services.
About
Dr. Brittany Ferri, PhD
