Trends in Pediatric Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits During the School Year and School…

Cohort studyThe Journal of school health· Sep 2026

Trends in Pediatric Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits During the School Year and School Breaks.

Lora Henderson Smith, Genevieve R Lyons, Hector A Hernandez Laines … Moira Smith

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Pediatric Emergency MedicineCohort studyQ1IF 2.1

Pediatric emergency department visits during school breaks more likely to end in inpatient admission

Trends in Pediatric Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits During the School Year and School Breaks.

Lora Henderson Smith … Moira Smith

The Journal of school health · Sep 2026

Background

We examined patient and visit trends in pediatric emergency department (emergency department) usage during the school year and summer breaks before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

We extracted data on mental health-related visits to the emergency department of an academic medical center from 2018 to 2023 among youth aged 5-18.

n = 2536

Results

odds of inpatient admission were 30% higher for emergency department visits during school breaks

OR by subgroup · 95% CI

More results

A total of n = 2536 unique individuals had 3358 emergency department encounters resulting in a mental health-related diagnosis.

Visit frequency was flat from August 2018 to a nadir in August 2020, followed by an increase.

More results

Female patients had increased odds of emergency department visits (OR = 1.45; 95% CI: 1.24-1.69) compared to males.

“

Conclusion

Students may experience a decrease in school-related stress during breaks, but a lack of access to school-based mental health support may be one factor related to increased emergency department visits requiring inpatient admissions.