Acute mental health service use following onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada: a trend analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The extent to which heightened distress during the COVID-19 pandemic translated to increases in severe mental health outcomes is unknown. We examined trends in psychiatric presentations to acute care settings in the first 12 months after onset of the pandemic.

Methods

This was a trends analysis of administrative population data in Ontario, Canada. We examined rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits for mental health diagnoses overall and stratified by sex, age and diagnostic grouping (e.g., mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders), as well as visits for intentional self-injury for people aged 10 to 105 years, from January 2019 to March 2021. We used Joinpoint regression to identify significant inflection points after the onset of t

SUBMITTER: Saunders NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8598241 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature