Consultation trends in patients admitted to a Psychiatric Emergency Service before and during COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionThe COVID-19 outbreak had significant implications worldwide, including mental health. Consultations in the Emergency Service of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona varied in terms of reasons for consultations, psychopathology, and other aspects, before and during the pandemic.ObjectivesThi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European psychiatry 2023-03, Vol.66 (S1), p.S591-S592
Main Authors: M Gomez Ramiro, Gimenez, A, Fico, G, M Sague Vilavella, Valenti, M, Vazquez, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
COVID-19
Mental disorders
Pandemics
Suicidal behavior
Suicides & suicide attempts
Summer
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:IntroductionThe COVID-19 outbreak had significant implications worldwide, including mental health. Consultations in the Emergency Service of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona varied in terms of reasons for consultations, psychopathology, and other aspects, before and during the pandemic.ObjectivesThis study aims to assess differences in the profile of patients admitted within the last three years to the Psychiatric Emergency Service of a third-level hospital, in order to analyze variations in the number of patients visited, diagnoses and admissions throughout the different seasons.MethodsAll adults admitted from 2019 to 2021 to the Psychiatric Emergency Service of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Spain, were retrospectively included for analysis and divided into three groups depending on the year they attended the Emergency Service. SPSS v25.0 and R statistics were used in order to compare differences between groups.ResultsA total of 13677 adult individuals who attended the psychiatric emergency service of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona between 2019 and 2021 were included in the analysis. 4814 patients were visited in 2019, 4007 in 2020 and 4856 in 2021. The majority of patients were male (50.1%), with a mean age of 40.47 years (SD 15.83). In terms of acute admission rates, 24.6% of the total sample were hospitalized in an acute psychiatric unit, whereas in the spring of 2020, 34.3% of patients attending the Emergency Service were hospitalized. This revealed significant differences when compared with spring of 2019 and 2021 and with the rest of seasons (p
ISSN:0924-9338
1778-3585
DOI:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2023.1236