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A Quality Improvement Project to Decrease the Length of Stay on a Psychiatric Adolescent Partial Hospital Program
Author(s) -
Memel Brenda
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.331
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1744-6171
pISSN - 1073-6077
DOI - 10.1111/jcap.12005
Subject(s) - partial hospitalization , quality of life (healthcare) , medicine , mental health , psychiatry , psychology , nursing
Problem Clinicians are challenged to treat adolescents with life‐threatening behaviors while accessing fewer mental health resources with increased utilization management pressures. Methods Dialectical behavior therapy ( DBT ) skills training groups were implemented as a quality improvement project to decrease the length of stay on an adolescent psychiatric partial hospital program by reducing potential life‐threatening behaviors. Findings The average length of stay decreased nearly 5 days during the project. Potential life‐threatening urges seemed to increase from pretreatment findings while life‐threatening actions appeared to decrease. Conclusions While the findings were inconclusive regarding the actual effect on life‐threatening urges and behaviors, dialectical behavior therapy skills training groups may have positive outcomes on an adolescent psychiatric partial hospital program.