Individual and organizational predictors of pediatric psychiatric inpatient admission in connecticut hospitals: a 6 month secondary analysis.

The objective of this study is to test the hypotheses that bipolar disorders or depressive disorders, minority status, and the presence of pediatric inpatient psychiatric unit will be individual predictors of pediatric psychiatric inpatient admission, and to provide a model that will evaluate which individual and organizational characteristics predict pediatric psychiatric inpatient. For this purpose, a secondary analysis of the medical records of 1,520 pediatric patient visits between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008, was conducted using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. Independent predictors of pediatric psychiatric inpatient admission were presence of bipolar and depressive disorders, greater average daily census, and increasing operating margin. Minority status was a significant predictor of not being admitted, as was presence of an anxiety disorder, greater total margin and older age. The results indicate that both individual and organizational factors impact disposition outcomes in particular subsets of pediatric patients who present to emergency departments for psychiatric reasons.

Event-related potentials in cocaine-exposed children during a Stroop task.

OBJECTIVE: Prenatal cocaine-exposure may interfere with the ontogeny of prefrontal cortical executive functions due to cocaine's effect on the developing monoaminergic system. This study presents findings regarding cortical functioning in 29 prenatally cocaine-exposed (CE) and non-drug-exposed (NDE) 7- to 9-year-old children participating in event related potential (ERP) studies. METHODS: ERPs were recorded using 128-electrode high-density arrays while children responded to a standard Stroop paradigm. RESULTS: In the Stroop paradigm, CE children generated prolonged responses to the words while the NDE children produced briefer responses. Effects were noted in the region of the initial positive peak (P1), the second negative peak (N2) and the later positive peak (P3). CONCLUSIONS: Early cocaine exposure may inhibit the specialization and streamlining of brain region involvement during cognitive processing such that task processing is slower to begin, requires more diverse cortical involvement, and requires more time to complete. ERP methodology has considerable potential for studying frontal maturation and may provide additional information to clarify generally the specific effects of prenatal CE on cortical functioning and the developmental course of cognitive functions.