The Economic Impact of Providing Evidence-Based Pediatric Mental Health Literacy Training to Primary Care Physicians

OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a review of the current state of child and adolescent mental health literacy and provides current evidence of the economic impact of a pediatric mental health literacy (MHL) training program. METHODS: Employing a case-series-comparison design, physician referrals to urgent and specialized mental health services were linked with patient-specific information comparing referrals from MHL participants and non-participating physicians. The economic impact analysis was based on changes in the admitted referral frequency and lengths of stay for the MHL group, compared to themselves pretraining, and over the same time period compared to non-participating physicians. RESULTS: Average scheduled ambulatory admission rates per physician remained constant for trained and untrained pre-post groups. Average scheduled ambulatory admission wait time and length of stay reduced significantly post-training for MHL-trained physicians compared to pre-training and untrained physicians. In addition to reductions in length of stay, the total bed costs saving for emergency/inpatients admission deferrals was $2,932,112 or about $20,000 per MHL-trained physician. CONCLUSION: The estimated economic impact of the MHL training shows a substantial return on investment and supports wider implementation. The MHL training program should be a key feature of mental health reform strategies, as well as continuing and undergraduate medical education.