The following is the summary of “Pediatric psychiatric emergency rooms during COVID-19: a multi-center study” published in the January 2023 issue of Psychiatry by Erez,et al.
When it comes to kids and teens, the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been a huge source of anxiety and worry. There has been a dramatic increase in reported mental health issues, according to both surveys and data from crisis hotlines. Researchers anticipated an increase in new patients with anxiety, depression, or stress-related illnesses presenting to the psychiatric emergency room (ER), as this is the first-line, no-cost facility for psychiatric crises.
There was one general hospital and 2 psychiatric hospitals’ worth of data provided. Using multilevel linear models, researchers assessed data from computerized files covering all pediatric and adolescent visits from March 2019 through December 2019 and compared them to the same months in 2020. The proportion of people with severe mental disorders who sought help increased (P=.029), although the overall number of visits decreased (P=.017), especially among those identified as suffering from stress-related, anxiety, and mood disorders.
Because of the pandemic’s low utilization of child and adolescent mental emergency hospitals, tele-psychiatry is an essential component of emergency services. It also implies that the timing of the appearance of new psychiatric diagnoses relevant to the epidemic is crucially important. Studies are needed in the future to determine how the epidemic and the quick implementation of tele-psychiatry will affect the population in the long run.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-022-04371-7
