title: Developmental history collection on a child psychiatric inpatient service.
abstract: This retrospective study was the first step of a larger project aimed at constructing a data collection tool to be used by child psychiatric nurses on an acute psychiatric inpatient service. A sample of 41 records was reviewed by a single reviewer using explicit criteria to determine the quality of data currently being gathered. The sample was randomly selected from 180 records of children admitted to an acute child psychiatric inpatient service in a major teaching institution. Of the 41 records reviewed, 14 had little or no information concerning the child's developmental course, and in about 50% of the charts similar information was recorded by different team members. It was noted that this service is fairly new, and no assessment tool that reflects a consensus of the multidisciplinary team is currently in use. Without a systematic method of gathering data upon admission, data collection will continue to be inconsistent and incomplete.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Scahill
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sipple
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D005260:Female; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D009731:Nursing Audit; D010343:Patient Admission; D011897:Random Allocation; D012189:Retrospective Studies