Behavioral Health Integration Can Improve Psychosocial Health of Children

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 24, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For children at federally qualified health centers implementing behavioral health integration, encounters with a behavioral health clinician (BHC) and psychotropic prescriptions are associated with improved psychosocial symptoms, according to a study published online Sept. 16 in JAMA Network Open.

Jihye Kim, Ph.D., from Boston Medical Center, and colleagues examined the association between receipt of integrated behavioral health services with changes in psychosocial symptoms among children receiving care at federally qualified health centers with behavioral health integration in a cohort study using electronic medical record data for children aged 4 to 18 years. Receipt of integrated behavioral health services was categorized as receipt of BHC encounters, community health worker encounters, and psychotropic prescriptions.

Of 942 unique children, 57.5 percent received any type of treatment and 42.5 percent were in the control group. The researchers found that the 17-item Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17) scores were 1.51 points lower among children in the treatment group after having at least one encounter with a BHC compared with the control group. PSC-17 scores were 2.21 points lower among children in the treatment group after they received a psychotropic prescription compared with the control group. There was no significant change in scores among children with at least one community health worker encounter.

“These findings suggest that behavioral health integration within federally qualified health centers may be a promising vehicle for expanding the reach of pediatric behavioral health care and for improving the health outcomes within marginalized populations,” the authors write.

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