Baseline characteristics of young people (N = 40 290) aged 8–26 years with mental health primary diagnosis from 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2018 in NSW public hospital EDs
| % | Definition* | |
| Sociodemographic characteristics | ||
| Sex | Sex of the patient based on the person’s own self-report | |
| Male | 45.58 | |
| Female | 54.39 | |
| Not stated | 0.03 | |
| Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander | Whether the person is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, based on the person’s own self-report | |
| No | 87.34 | |
| Yes | 11.00 | |
| Not stated | 1.67 | |
| Age at first presentation (years) | The age of the patient in years | |
| 20–26 | 44.24 | |
| 15–19 | 40.34 | |
| 8–15 | 15.42 | |
| Rurality or remoteness | The patient’s usual place of residence location according to the Australian Standard Geographical Classification System | |
| Major cities | 65.30 | |
| Inner regional | 24.12 | |
| Outer regional or remote or very remote | 6.29 | |
| Not stated | 4.30 | |
| Socio-economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) quartile | An index developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics ranking areas according to relative socioeconomic advantage where higher scores denote better advantage | |
| Most disadvantage: First (816–940) | 24.93 | |
| Second (942–971) | 23.92 | |
| Third (972–1038) | 23.41 | |
| Least disadvantage: Fourth (1039–1155) | 23.45 | |
| Missing | 4.30 | |
| Characteristics of the initial ED presentation | ||
| ED primary diagnosis | The condition established after assessment to be responsible for the person presenting to the ED; if the person is admitted as an inpatient, it is the equivalent of the admission diagnosis. These are classified using the ICD-10 subcodes. | |
| Anxiety | 23.19 | |
| Depression | 9.94 | |
| General mental health problem | 22.03 | |
| Suicidal | 16.85 | |
| Self-harm | 8.10 | |
| Others | 20.03 | |
| Level of clinical facility | Clinical level according to NSW health designation reflecting increasing capacity and capability to provide specialist emergency care with higher numbers providing care for higher-risk patients and more complex clinical care | |
| 1 or 2 | 3.72 | |
| 3 or 4 | 36.14 | |
| 5 or 6 | 58.34 | |
| Missing | 1.80 | |
| Triage category | Patient classification according to the urgency of their needs for medical and nursing care; based on the Australasian Triage Scale with category 1 indicating immediately life-threatening, category 2 indicating potentially life-threatening, category 3 indicating urgent, category 4 indicating semiurgent and category 5 indicating non-urgent presentations. | |
| 1 or 2 | 14.31 | |
| 3 | 51.81 | |
| 4 or 5 | 33.86 | |
| Missing | 0.02 | |
| Mode of arrival | Mode of transport by which the patient arrives | |
| Arrived on own | 57.41 | |
| Ambulance | 37.61 | |
| Police | 4.71 | |
| Others | 0.20 | |
| Missing | 0.07 | |
| Source of referral | Source from which the patient was referred to the ED service | |
| Others | 15.37 | |
| Self/family/friend | 84.28 | |
| Missing | 0.35 | |
| Admitted to hospital | The separation status of the patient from ED where he/she is admitted to a ward/inpatient, a critical care ward or an operating suite | |
| No | 76.74 | |
| Yes | 23.26 | |
| Left at own risk | The separation status of the patient from ED where he/she left prior to treatment completion or did not wait until order for transfer to other facilities, whether admitted as inpatient or not | |
| No | 96.00 | |
| Yes | 4.00 | |
| Completed treatment | The separation status of the patient from ED where he/she has completed treatment in the same facility | |
| No | 32.38 | |
| Yes | 67.62 | |
| Transferred to another hospital | The separation status of the patient from ED where he/she is transferred to another hospital or other clinical service location, whether the patient has started treatment in the facility or not | |
| No | 92.55 | |
| Yes | 7.45 | |
| Arrival time of day | Time at which the patient presents for the service | |
| 08:00–17:59 | 49.87 | |
| 18:00–23:59 | 33.66 | |
| 00:00–07:59 | 16.47 | |
| Departure day of week | For an admitted patient, this refers to the day of week the patient is either (1) transferred to a ward or other unit or (2) leaves the ED for transfer to another unit; for a non-admitted patient, this refers to the day of week at which the assessment and initial treatment are completed and/or he/she physically leaves the department. | |
| Friday–Sunday | 40.23 | |
| Monday–Thursday | 59.14 | |
| Missing | 0.63 | |
| First episode length of stay (min) | Duration of a patient’s stay in the ED computed as the time difference between actual departure time/date and arrival time/date | |
| <180 (3 hours) | 41.18 | |
| 180–480 (3–8 hours) | 43.91 | |
| 460+ (8+ hours) | 14.89 | |
| Missing | 0.02 | |
*From Emergency Department Data Collection, NSW Ministry of Health data dictionary (https://www.cherel.org.au/media/23786/eddc-data-dictionary-for-cherel-website_jan2017.docx)
ED, emergency department; ICD-10, International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision; NSW, New South Wales.