Assessing Stress in Patients in the Emergency Department

Ji-Ting Janet Yau, DO, General Pediatrics Resident

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major stressor in the lives of the global community, but perhaps greatest for adolescents and young adults, who don’t always have resources to help them cope. To assess psychosocial stress and coping in adolescents, Ji-Ting Janet Yau, DO, has developed a 12-question quality improvement survey. The survey focuses on patients 12 years of age or older who present to the Emergency Department at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The questions quickly alert social workers to the patients most distressed by the pandemic. Social workers then perform a more in-depth assessment of patients and provide resources and interventions to support the family. Dr. Yau’s team proposes to study outcomes of this survey to improve patient experience.