Teenage girls have led the way in a surge of children and adolescents visiting hospital emergency rooms for psychiatric care after suicide attempts, self-cutting, violence and drug overdoses, new federal data shows.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that 16.1 girls out of every 1,000 children and adolescents visited emergency rooms for psychiatric care from 2018 to 2021, the most recent years of data. By comparison, the visit rate for boys was 12.1 per 1,000 youths.

“Among children and adolescents with mental health disorders, visit rates were higher among adolescents ages 12-17 compared with children younger than 12 years and among girls compared with boys,” Loredana Santo, a co-author of the report, told The Washington Times.

Mood disorders, anxiety and behavioral and emotional problems were the most frequent mental health diagnoses during the visits, in descending order.

About a quarter of youths diagnosed with psychiatric problems in the ER received at least one psychiatric medication during the period, the report found.

According to Ms. Santo, the findings offer more insight into “a significant increase” of children and adolescents seeking emergency psychiatric care in recent decades.

The CDC report adds to a growing body of research showing an uptick in the number of teenage girls seeking treatment for emotional breakdowns, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the report did not say why more girls than boys sought psychiatric care, some mental health experts said it confirms years of clinical evidence that girls are more likely than boys to ask for and need psychiatric help during their teenage years.

“Girls are more likely to disclose suicidal thinking than boys, and more likely to attempt suicide in adolescence, even though boys are more likely to die by suicide because they choose more violent methods,” Dr. John V. Campo, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, told The Times.

While anxiety and depression are “equally prevalent” in boys and girls before puberty, they become more common in girls during adolescence, he added.

According to the CDC report, emergency departments received 1,026,000 visits annually from children and adolescents with diagnosed mental health problems between 2018 and 2021. The rate was 14 psychiatric care visits for every 1,000 children and adolescents.

By comparison, 382.1 out of every 1,000 visits to the emergency room were for nonpsychiatric reasons.

Psychiatric visits represented 3.5% of all emergency room admissions among children and teens from 2018 to 2021.

According to Brad Schwall, president of the Center for Integrative Counseling and Psychology in Texas, the report confirms that anxiety and depression disorders worsened among teenagers even before COVID lockdowns sent them home in 2020.

“We were already seeing increases in anxiety among adolescents and young adults before the pandemic,” Mr. Schwall said in an email. “The focus should be on educating people as to how they may determine if their child is experiencing a mental health crisis, as well as focusing on making mental health care accessible.”

• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.