Cross-sectional study reveals nurses and nurse practitioners primarily treat older, disadvantaged youth, highlighting their crucial role in expanding access to outpatient mental health care.
Transition-age youth face significant challenges accessing mental health care. The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of youth (12-26 years) receiving mental health care from nurses or nurse practitioners (NPs) vs psychiatrists using data on outpatient mental health visits from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2000-2019). Among 10,916 mental health visits during this period (weighted N = 114,788,891), 93.6% of visits were by psychiatrists and 6.4% were by nurses or NPs. In adjusted models, nurses and NPs were less likely to care for younger patients (adjusted odds ratio=0.07, 95% CI=0.02-0.28), college-educated patients (adjusted odds ratio=0.04, 95% CI=0.01-0.26), and patients from the Midwest, West, and South. Nurses and NPs are an important source of mental health care for vulnerable youth, especially older youth and those with socioeconomic vulnerability.
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Choi et al. (2026) studied this question.
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