Predicting patterns of service utilization within children’s mental health agencies

Table 1 Service Use and Demographic Characteristics by Pattern of Service Use

Pattern	N	Total	Sex¹	Age²	Number of episodes			Duration of involvement (years)	Duration of involvement > 2 years	Visits over 4 years	Volume of all services³
			Male		0	1	2+
		%	%	M (SD)	(%)	(%)	(%)	M (SD)	%	M (SD)	%
Minimal	2997	53	61.5	10.1 (2.6)^A	60.9	37.3	1.8	0.4 (0.8)	6.3	3.1 (2.9)	9.8
Acute	1131	20	60.9	9.9 (2.5) ^AB	***	95.6	4.2	0.8 (0.7)	8.2	15.6 (17.4)	18.5
Brief Episodic	447	8	62.2	9.3 (2.5) ^C	***	27.3	72.0	3.5 (0.5)	99.8	28.6 (28.0)	14.2
Intensive	730	13	67.8	9.7 (2.5) ^B	–	73.4	26.6	1.8 (0.8)	31.1	32.6 (28.6)	25.9
Ongoing/ Intensive-Episodic	327	6	61.2	9.9 (2.4) ^AB	–	54.4	45.5	3.3 (0.6)	100.0	86.7 (105.8)	31.6
Total Sample	5632	100	62.3	9.9 (2.6)	32.5	53.9	13.7	1.1 (1.3)	22.8	16.3 (36.1)	100.0

Note. *** reflects < 5 children within the category; data not reported. --- reflects no cases in a cell
¹Sex differed across patterns [χ² (4) = 11.279, p = .024]. The Intensive pattern had proportionally more boys than expected [Adjusted residual χ²(1) = 11.022, p < .001]
²Age at intake differed across patterns [F (4, 5627) = 11.8, p < .0001]. Means followed by a common superscript letter are not significantly different at p < 0.05 (Bonferroni post-hoc test)
³Volume of all services: Visits were summed across all clients and all agencies within each of the five patterns, and divided by the sum of all visits for all clients and agencies

ISSN: 1472-6963