By Healio, October 21, 2019
An updated policy statement and a technical report issued by the AAP highlighted the need for increased involvement among pediatricians in their patients’ mental health care and increased mental health care training in medical education programs.
“Pediatricians — whether in primary care or subspecialty practice — typically have longitudinal, trusting relationships with their patients and families and, as a result, unique opportunities to promote social-emotional health and identify and address emerging mental health problems,” Jane Meschan Foy, MD, FAAP, a professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told Infectious Diseases in Children.
“By enhancing practice systems, acquiring a set of universally applicable communication skills, developing the capacity to recognize and manage common mental health conditions, and establishing collaborative relationships with mental health professionals to comanage patients with psychiatric emergencies and severely impairing conditions, pediatricians can partner with patients and families to reduce the distress of mental health problems, improve patients’ functioning, and increase the likelihood of patients’ receiving the care they need.”
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