Depression is the number one reason a child is admitted to a US hospital, apart from being born
AHRQ's hospital count ranked depressive disorders first among non-birth principal diagnoses for children in 2020, 2021 and 2023, and second in 2019 and 2022, ahead of asthma. The rate was 121 stays per 100,000 children in 2023.
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Caveat on this rating: A principal-diagnosis count depends on coding practice and on the definition AHRQ uses, which changed in 2016; 'first' means first among non-birth diagnoses in community hospitals, and the count says nothing about outcomes.
Significant findings
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project does not ask anyone anything. It counts discharge records from community hospitals and ranks each year's principal diagnoses. Its most-common-diagnoses file, with maternal and neonatal stays excluded, ranks depressive disorders among children aged 0 to 17 as follows: fourth in 2016, second in 2017, 2018 and 2019, first in 2020, first in 2021, second in 2022, and first in 2023.
The rate per 100,000 children, as published in the file: 104.2 in 2016, 122.4 in 2017, 124.3 in 2018, 124.7 in 2019, 110.4 in 2020, 133.6 in 2021, 119.1 in 2022 and 121.3 in 2023.
Before 2016 the file used a broader category, "mood disorders", under the older ICD-9 coding. That series ran from 110.0 per 100,000 in 2004 to 157.2 in 2015 and ranked first in 2013, 2014 and 2015. AHRQ changed the definition at the switch to ICD-10, and the two series cannot be joined; the explorer draws them as two lines with a gap.
The same file for adults aged 18 to 44 ranks depressive disorders second in 2016 through 2019 and third in 2020, 2022 and 2023 (fourth in 2021), with the rate falling from 202.3 per 100,000 in 2016 to 162.7 in 2023, while "schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders" held at second or third throughout, 183.3 to 173.0 per 100,000.
Worth asking
A hospital stay is the end of a chain, not the start of one. The count says nothing about whether the admission helped, how long it lasted or what it cost; the companion row on stays, cost and length of stay does. It does say that in three of the last four years, more American children were admitted for depression than for any single physical illness.
Source
HCUP Fast Stats: U.S. National Top Diagnoses, data year 2023 (most common principal diagnoses for inpatient stays by age group, maternal and neonatal stays excluded) — Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (2025)
How this was scored
- Study design
- not recorded
- Funding
- not recorded
- Published in
- not recorded
- Sample size
- not recorded
- Preregistered
- not recorded
- Conflicts disclosed
- not recorded
- Independent of proponent
- not recorded
- Retracted
- No
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Published September 17, 2026.
Questions
How strong is the evidence behind this?
veisund rates this source "not yet assessed". We have not finished checking this source. No judgement either way. One caveat travels with that badge: A principal-diagnosis count depends on coding practice and on the definition AHRQ uses, which changed in 2016; 'first' means first among non-birth diagnoses in community hospitals, and the count says nothing about outcomes. The score is calculated from recorded facts about the source — study design, funding, publication venue, sample size, preregistration — not typed in by an editor.
What is the source for this?
HCUP Fast Stats: U.S. National Top Diagnoses, data year 2023 (most common principal diagnoses for inpatient stays by age group, maternal and neonatal stays excluded) — Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (2025). The full source is linked on this page so you can read it yourself.
Is this medical advice?
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.