How emergency department visits for substance use disorders have evolved during the early COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Higher opioid overdoses and drug use have reportedly occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide evidence on how emergency department (ED) visits for substance use disorders (SUD) changed in the early pandemic period.

Methods

Using retrospective data from January-July 2020 compared to January-July 2019, we calculated weekly 2020/2019 visit ratios for opioid-related, alcohol-related, other drug-related disorders, and all non-COVID-19 visits. We assess how this ratio as well as overall visit numbers changed after the mid-March 2020 onset of general pandemic restrictions.

Results

In 4.5 million ED visits in 2020 and 2019 to 108 EDs in 18 U.S. states, SUD visits were higher in early 2020 compared to 2019. During the peak-pandemic restriction period (March

SUBMITTER: Pines JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9581895 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature