Urgency and emergency in developmental psychopathology: analysys of cases’ report attending a Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatric Service

Psychiatric emergencies have steadily increased in recent years, but they are still poorly defined and studied, especially in developmental age and outside the Emergency Department context. This retrospective cross-sectional study aims to analyse characteristics of a clinical sample under the light of psychiatric urgency and emergency concepts. Both the “urgency” and “emergency” concepts and the Rosenn & Gail’s severity classification were applied to 399 first inspection forms to describe different conditions at the arrival. About half of the cases corresponded to urgency/ emergency conditions, with a male gender prevalence and an average age of 10 y. Emergency was associated to Behavioural Disorders mainly, while urgency conditions were associated to Somatic sphere Disorders, Selfinjured Behaviours, Anxious -Affective Disorders. This research, operating a differentiation between urgency and emergency, allows a clearer identification and a tailored therapeutic plan about cases that are similar on a symptomatic side but different by a psychopathological perspective.