Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellow University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine Berkeley, California, United States
Background: The volume of hospital admissions for mental health crises has grown rapidly in recent years, and this has contributed to an increasing number of behavioral emergencies on non-psychiatric inpatient wards. An emerging strategy to address behavioral emergencies is the development of Behavioral Emergency Response Teams (BERT). These are specially trained, multidisciplinary teams designed to respond to behavioral emergencies and assist primary medical teams in deescalating challenging scenarios. To date, there have been few published studies on BERTs and no consensus statements regarding best practices for their implementation, composition, or outcome measures. Specifically, there is a paucity of studies surrounding their use in the pediatric setting, a context which requires unique considerations. Objective: We aimed to conduct a scoping review of the current literature about BERTs in the inpatient setting to gather collective insights and data regarding team composition, implementation methods, and outcome tracking (e.g., quality, safety, satisfaction). Design/Methods: We selected a scoping review format given the heterogeneity and scarcity of available literature. We included studies describing BERT implementation in pediatric and adult non-psychiatric hospital settings (inpatient and emergency department). We ascribed to the methodological framework put forth by Arksey and O’Malley and utilized the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist. We designed search strategies of PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and Embase as well the gray literature. A total of 2936 records were identified and after initial screening 56 full text articles were assessed for eligibility. Ultimately, after full text review, 25 studies were selected for inclusion. Data extraction is currently underway, and we plan to summarize quantitative data in a tabular format and will synthesize qualitative data using thematic analysis.
