Pediatric psychiatric emergency rooms during COVID-19: a multi-center study

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Gal Shoval¹  Gila Schoen¹  Galit Erez²  Yuval Bloch²  Yael Barzilai³  Sol Yakubovich³  Mariela Mosheva⁴  Doron Gothelf⁴  Nimrod Hertz-Palmor⁴  Gal Meiri⁵  Hadar Sadeh⁵  Tali Butler⁶ 

[1] Geha Mental Health Center and Tel Aviv University, Petah Tikva, Israel;Shalvata Mental Health Center and Tel Aviv University, Hod Hasharon, Israel;Shalvata Mental Health Center, Hod Hasharon, Israel;Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, Ramat Gan, Israel;Soroka Medical Center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel;Ziv Medical Center (Safed) and Bar-Ilan University, Safed, Israel;

关键词: COVID-19;    Psychiatric emergency room;    Children & adolescents;    Stress-related;    Severe mental disorder;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12888-022-04371-7

 received in 2021-08-24, accepted in 2022-11-05,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been a major stressor for the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Surveys and reports from hotlines indicate a significant rise in mental health problems. As the psychiatric emergency room (ER) is a first-line free-of-charge facility for psychiatric emergencies, we expected to see a significant increase in visits, specifically of new patients suffering from anxiety, depression, or stress-related disorders.MethodsData from two psychiatric hospital ERs and one general hospital were included. All visits of children and adolescents from the computerized files between March and December of 2019 were analyzed anonymously and compared to the same months in 2020, using multilevel linear modeling.ResultsThere was a significant decline in the total number of visits (p = .017), specifically among those diagnosed as suffering from stress-related, anxiety, and mood disorder groups (p = .017), and an incline in the proportion of visits of severe mental disorders (p = .029).DiscussionThe limited use of child and adolescent psychiatric emergency facilities during the pandemic highlights the importance of tele-psychiatry as part of emergency services. It also suggests the importance of the timeline of the emergence of clinically relevant new psychiatric diagnoses related to the pandemic. Future studies are needed to establish the long-term effects of the pandemic and the expeditious use of tele-psychiatry.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2022

【 图 表 】

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