Evidence-based brief interventions targeting acute mental health presentations for children and adolescents: systematic review

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.