Peer-reviewed article
The interface between paediatrics and camhs (child and adolescent psychiatry): Mental state examination teaching for paediatric trainees
Xu G ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study describes a teaching intervention delivered to paediatric trainee doctors to improve their confidence in conducting mental state examinations for children and adolescents presenting to hospital out-of-hours. A 30-minute training session was delivered to senior house officers, with confidence measured before and after using questionnaires. The training significantly improved trainees' confidence in both conducting and presenting mental state examinations.
Key points
- Paediatric trainees often lack formal training in mental state examination despite regularly assessing child and adolescent psychiatry patients during out-of-hours shifts
- A 30-minute teaching session significantly improved trainee confidence in taking a psychiatric mental state exam (p=0.005, r=0.628)
- Training also improved confidence in presenting a mental state exam (p=0.0041, r=0.6420)
- Trainees had previously expressed anxiety about performing mental state assessments overnight before comprehensive assessment by CAMHS professionals
Limitations
The study does not report the number of participants or demonstrate whether improved confidence translates to better clinical outcomes or assessment quality. No comparison group was used, so improvements could reflect familiarity with the questionnaire or general encouragement rather than educational benefit.
Abstract
Introduction During an out-of-hours shift, the initial assessment of a CAMHS patient is performed by the paediatric trainee, usually the paediatric SHO (senior-house-officer). During my placement as a paediatric SHO, I was aware of a gap in formalised metal state examination teaching for paediatric juniors, which would be crucial for a thorough assessment of these patients, and to better guarantee they are safely managed until further assessment. Objectives The aim is to provide a short teaching session on mental state examining of the CAMHS patent to paediatric SHOs in order to improve their confidence in assessment. Methods In order to assess initial confidence in assessing the mental-state of a CAMHS patient, a pre-teaching questionnaire was given to the paediatric SHOs. A 30-minute teaching session on the mental state exam was then carried out and a post-teaching questionnaire was then given to the same trainees. Results Paired sample Wilcoxons signed rank test found that training significant improved trainees’ confidence in taking a psychiatric mental state exam (p= 0.005, r = 0.628), and improved their confidence in presenting a mental state exam (p = 0.0041, r = 0.6420). Conclusions Being able to confidently assess the mental state of a CAMHS patient in an on call shift is important for the initial assessing paediatric trainee. However this is often not taught in the paediatric curriculum and trainees have expressed some anxiety in performing this assessment overnight, before a more comprehensive assessment by a CAMHS professional. A simple teaching session may help to reduce this anxiety and improve trainees’ confidence.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- A 30-minute teaching session on mental state examination conducted to paediatric senior house officers
- Population
- Paediatric trainee doctors (senior house officers) in the United Kingdom
Key finding
Training significantly improved confidence in taking a psychiatric mental state exam (p=0.005, r=0.628)