Children’s mental health visits to emergency departments increased during COVID-19 pandemic

 

 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957279

 

 News Release 28-Jun-2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago

 

In the Chicago area, pediatric mental health Emergency Department (ED) visits increased 27 percent at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a 4 percent increase monthly through February 2021, according to a study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published in the journal Academic Pediatrics. The authors found increased ED visits for suicide, self-injury and disruptive behaviors, as well as higher admission rates for these children.

“During the pandemic, we found fewer ED visits for depression and anxiety and more visits for suicide or self-injury,” said lead author Lavanya Shankar, MD, MS, a hospitalist at Lurie Children’s and Health System Clinician of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Our findings suggest that emergency care is increasingly reserved for more severe cases of mood disorders involving risk of self-harm. We also found increased pediatric ED visits for disruptive, impulse control and conduct disorders, which may have worsened because of inability to access outpatient services or because of psychosocial stressors imposed by the pandemic.”

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