The effect of Sars-CoV2 pandemic on consultations of a child and adolescent emergency psychiatry clinic

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Our study aims to investigate how the pandemic has affected the emergency department (ED) visits and to assess whether COVID-19 pandemic changed the presentations of diagnoses /chief complaints of the patients across three years. METHODS: This is a retrospective study. The study population was described as all patients who applied to our Pediatric Psychiatry ED from March to May of 2019, 2020 and 2021. RESULTS: The overall number of child and adolescent psychiatric emergency department visits declined by 49.5% in 2020 during pandemic period with implementation of COVID-19 related measures. From the corresponding period of 2021, the total number of ED visits have increased to a higher level than the same period of 2020 and even 2019. In 2020 and 2021, compared to 2019 (26.1%); there was a decrease of patients being admitted to the inpatient unit. We also found that the ratio of patients who were diagnosed with autism spectrum, mental retardation, depression, trauma and related, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders got increased. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The immediate drop in visits to ED after the first pandemic restrictions may reflect people being more hesitant to hospitals at the beginning. But one year later, in the mid-pandemic period, the rise in visits to ED could have been because people got used to the pandemic or the need for acute psychiatric care cannot further be postponed. The decrease of admissions to the inpatient psychiatric unit may be a result of COVID-19 related measures as total number of beds got reduced due to restrictions.

Keywords

• child and adolescent psychiatry
• covid-19
• emergency psychiatry
• pandemic