Children’s Mental Health Hospital Rankings

Currently, there is no "Children's Mental Health Hospital Ranking" officially released by health regulatory authorities and authoritative academic associations in China. All relevant rankings you can search through public channels are almost all produced by commercial institutions for the purpose of traffic and diversion. The reference value is extremely low, and some are even misleading.

Many parents may want to ask, then why are there such rankings everywhere on the Internet? To put it bluntly, it's just a traffic business. After all, the needs of parents with children's psychological problems are too urgent, and "ranking" is the most time-saving screening method, so it has naturally become a hot topic for commercial organizations to attract traffic. If you click in carefully, you will find that most of the institutions at the top are institutions that have placed bidding advertisements. Clicking in will directly pop up a consultation window for you to leave your phone number. Really well-known public specialty hospitals rarely occupy the front row in this type of ranking.

Why doesn’t the official publish a unified ranking? To be honest, there is no way to arrange it. The scope of diagnosis, treatment, and intervention related to children's mental health is too large, from autism, tics, and ADHD in younger children to depression and anxiety, bipolar disorder, and behavioral deviations in adolescence. Different institutions have such different expertise that it is impossible to use a unified set of scoring standards to prioritize. For example, the child psychiatry department of a well-known tertiary pediatric department in Beijing has rich experience in the diagnosis and medication of severe children with mental disorders. Children with severe illnesses all over China go there. However, doctors have to answer 70 or 80 calls a day, and the consultation time for each child is 10 minutes at most. There is no time at all for long-term psychological intervention for children with mild emotional problems, and there are not enough rehabilitation resources for long-term training for children with autism. You say it ranks first, but it is of little reference significance for families who need long-term intervention.

Don't believe it, last year I met a parent in Qingdao. His child was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 7. He followed the online rankings and went to Beijing to find the top three hospital mentioned above. He waited in line for 10 days to get a special number. The doctor prescribed medicine in 5 minutes and sent him back. He didn't even explain all the precautions for family behavior guidance. Finally, I went back to the child psychology department of the local Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Qingdao, where I found a regular doctor for weekly follow-up consultations, and a supporting attention training group in cooperation with the hospital. In half a year, the child's concentration in class improved a lot. The parents said they would not bother with the trip to Beijing if they had known better. It cost a lot of money, and the child was tired from traveling back and forth.

Nowadays, many parents still have a stereotype: public schools must be more reliable than private schools. This view actually has two reasons. There is an autism intervention team around me. All interventionists have BCBA (Certified Behavior Analyst) qualifications. They also have official referral cooperation with the local public fine health center. Many children with autism diagnosed by the public will be referred to them for long-term ABA intervention because the public rehabilitation quota takes more than half a year. The intensity of intervention and the precision of follow-up are even higher than those in public schools. Of course, the premise is that the institution must have formal qualifications. If you encounter the kind of private institution that says "3 months to cure autism" and "7 days to reverse learning boredom" and dares to prescribe psychotropic drugs to children casually, don't think twice and just go around. It's 100% a scam.

If you are really unsure about how to find a reliable institution, just focus on two criteria: First, the qualification threshold. If you need to diagnose or prescribe psychotropic drugs, you must find a medical institution with psychiatric qualifications. The treating doctor must have a training background in child psychiatry. Don't ask someone who only has a psychological counselor certificate to diagnose your child. This is illegal.； Secondly, symptoms are more important than reputation. If your child has tics, go to a local hospital that treats a lot of children with tics. If your child has emotional problems in adolescence, go to a doctor who has a specialized adolescent psychology clinic and is willing to spend enough time for interviews. It is much more useful than running around across cities with so-called national rankings.

To be honest, I have been in this business for almost 8 years, and I have seen too many parents looking through rankings in the middle of the night and looking for scalpers to grab accounts, for fear of delaying their children. This feeling is completely understandable, but don’t be fooled by online rankings. Children's psychological problems themselves are a matter that requires long-term follow-up. Finding a doctor who can make regular follow-up visits and understand your child's condition is much more effective than trying to find the number one expert who only has a 5-minute interview. If you are really unsure, it is better to go to the pediatric department of the local public mental health center or the pediatric department of a tertiary general hospital for a preliminary diagnosis. First, find out what the child's problem is, and then find targeted resources in the corresponding field. This is better than anything else.