NOT AN EASY TIME –

July 12, 2023 – A second study in JAMA Network Open also showed that mental health visits to EDs across the United States decreased less than non-mental health visits during the pandemic, showing mental health patients had less flexible needs even during public health emergencies.

The study was based on weekly tallies of mental health and non-mental health ED visits at 10 major US city regions. Prepandemic baseline levels were established from 2019 data, and time trends of these patterns were examined in the corresponding weeks of 2020 and 2021.

The mean total number of ED visits decreased by 45,117 (95% CI, −67 ,499 to −22, 735) visits per region per week (a 39% decrease) in the weeks after the pandemic onset, compared with corresponding weeks in 2019. But mental health visits only showed a 23% decrease. Of note, the absolute number of mental health ED presentations did not return to 2019 baseline levels, whereas the total number of ED presentations did return to 2019 baseline levels by 2021. “Although total ED visits decreased sharply with the pandemic onset in 2020 and rebounded quickly to prepandemic levels in 2021, MH-related visits were less elastic and did not return to prepandemic levels. This finding suggests that patients with non-MH conditions may have a greater ability to adapt to public health emergencies, such as a global pandemic, than those with MH conditions,” the authors write.

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