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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Trends, service burden, clinical characteristics, and contextual factors in outpatient visits related to school attendance problems among children and adolescents: 2019 to 2025

Trends, service burden, clinical characteristics, and contextual factors in outpatient encounters related to school attendance problems among children and adolescents：2019 to 2025

Outpatient visits related to school attendance problems increased substantially from 2019 to 2025, reflecting not only improved clinical identification but also a growing need for follow-up and repeated service use.

The study aimed to describe the presentation, clinical identification, service burden, and documented contributing factors of school attendance problems (SAP), which are increasingly recognized as a clinical indicator of functional impairment in child mental health services, in outpatient visits. This electronic health record (EHR)-based repeated cross-sectional study included outpatient visits by young people aged 6–18 years between 2019 and 2025; SAP-related visits were identified from both structured fields and clinical narratives, and annual trends were estimated using quasi-Poisson log-linear models and summarized as the average annual percent change (AAPC). Of 204,863 eligible visits, 26,540 were SAP-related; the overall visit-level identification rate was 12.95%, with annual identification increasing from 6.99% in 2019 to 18.49% in 2025. The proportion of follow-up visits rose from 51.05% to 75.34%, and the mean number of visits per affected patient increased from 1.07 to 2.44; increases were more pronounced among female patients, adolescents aged 13–18 years, and students in grades 8–11. Demand was lower in January–February and higher in September–December; the most frequently documented factors were emotional distress, somatic symptoms, academic pressure, neurodevelopmental difficulties, family and peer conflict, and adjustment difficulties. The authors recommend developing structured outpatient care pathways, standardized EHR documentation, ongoing monitoring, multicenter surveillance, and stepped clinical, family, and school support to facilitate early identification, return-to-school planning, and sustained attendance.

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