Sustainability of a Care Pathway for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder on an Inpatient Psychiatric Service

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are frequently hospitalized within general psychiatric settings, which are not usually designed to meet their needs. An initial evaluation of a care pathway developed for youth with ASD receiving services in a general psychiatric inpatient unit (ASD-CP) showed promise in improving outcomes while using few resources (Kuriakose et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 48:4082–4089, 2018). As sustainability of inpatient psychiatric initiatives is imperative but rarely investigated, this study examined the stability of ASD-CP outcomes during an 18-month follow-up period (n = 15) compared to the 18-month initial evaluation (n = 20) and 18-month pre-implementation (n = 17) periods. Decreased use of crisis interventions, including holds/restraints and intramuscular medication use, was sustained in the 18 months after the initial implementation period. Implications and limitations are discussed.