Interventions to support staff caring for pediatric behavioral health patients in the emergency department

Abstract

Emergency departments (ED) across the country continue to see increasing volumes of behavioral health (BH) patients. With this increased volume, an increased number of aggressive patients has also been noted. The staff in our pediatric ED frequently expressed their uneasiness when caring for BH patients, and voiced concern over the number of resources being allocated to BH patients. The purpose of this evidence based practice (EBP) project was to discover what additional resources would be perceived by staff to be the most beneficial to increase their safety, comfort level and job satisfaction when caring for BH patients.