Background Intensive home treatment (IHT) is an intervention that provides intensive psychiatric (crisis) care in the home environment.
Aim To formulate indication criteria for IHT in children and adolescents, to improve assessment and to reduce the time needed for triage.
Method The Delphi method was used to assess the opinion of experts on the indication for IHT in children and adolescents. In round 1, 18 employees of the IHT team of Levvel (Academic Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) list the indication criteria that they thought should be used to determine whether a patient belonged to the IHT target group. Open coding was used to analyze the responses and to derive statements that, in the following three rounds, were rated by the participants on their importance.
Results 33 statements were deemed important enough (> 80% consensus) to include in the final list. These statements concerned the aim, target group, treatment services, the role and responsibilities of the referrer and logistical issues.
Conclusion The list with assessment indicators is a promising tool to help IHT teams working with children and adolescents improve and standardize their triage.