Pediatricians who participated in the Collaborative Mental Health Program at Chicago’s Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital were more likely to diagnose and treat anxiety and depression in children without relying on additional support from professionals, a study published in the American journal found. academic pediatrics. The findings suggest that the program, called Mood, Anxiety, and ADHD Coordinated Care (MAACC), was successful in preparing pediatricians to independently manage these conditions, allowing more children to access care despite the continued shortage of pediatric mental health professionals.
Our research shows that training pediatricians through collaborative care improves their ability to manage their own mental health conditions, which dramatically increases access for children. ”
John Parkhurst, Ph.D., senior author, director of collaborative care psychology at Lurie Children’s Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
The MAACC program was launched in 2018 and currently serves 57 pediatric primary care practices and includes more than 350 participating pediatricians. MAACC pediatricians completed training consisting of a 12-module curriculum and monthly virtual case presentations. After training, they can refer patients for multidisciplinary evaluation and develop a treatment plan. The pediatrician could also consult with a child psychologist or psychiatrist at Lurie Children’s Hospital if needed.
In this study, Dr. Parkhurst and colleagues used electronic medical record data excluding patients directly served by MAACC to assess the frequency of mental health diagnoses, medication prescriptions, and return visits by pediatricians across two groups: pediatricians participating in MAACC (4 practices, 16 providers) and pediatricians providing usual care without access to a collaborative care program (3 practices, 15 providers). Data were analyzed for the base year (July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018) and the first four years of MAACC implementation (July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2022).
“We found that MAACC experience had a meaningful impact on pediatrician behavior. Even accounting for year-over-year changes, pediatricians exposed to MAACC were more than twice as likely to identify patients with anxiety or depression and nearly three times as likely to see those patients for ongoing follow-up. Among diagnosed patients, antidepressant prescriptions were approximately 20% higher in MAACC practices,” Dr. Parkhurst said. “These findings confirm that our program is producing the intended results: transferring the necessary knowledge and skills to pediatricians so that common mental health conditions in children can be managed in primary care.”
This research was supplementally supported by the Pritzker Foundation.
sauce:
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Reference magazines:
DOI: 10.1016/j.acap.2026.103361
