Adult Psychiatric Inpatient Admissions and Length of Stay Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Large Urban Hospital Setting in Vancouver, British Columbia

Overview

Journal Front Health Serv

Specialty Health Services

Date 2024 May 29

PMID 38807747

Authors

Angela Russolillo

Michelle Carter

Mejiao Guan

Pulkit Singh

David Kealy

Julia Raudzus

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic individuals with mental illnesses faced challenges accessing psychiatric care. Our study aimed to describe patient characteristics and compare admissions and length of stay (LOS) for psychiatric-related hospitalizations before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis using health administrative data comparing individuals with an acute psychiatric admission between two time periods: 1st March 2019 to 31st December 2019 (pre-COVID) and 1st March 2020 to 31st December 2020 (during-COVID). Multivariable negative binomial regression was used to model the association between most responsible diagnosis type and the two-time periods to hospital LOS, reporting the Rate Ratio (RR) as the measure of effect.

Results: The cohort comprised 939 individuals who were predominately male (60.3%) with a severe mental illness (schizophrenia or mood-affective disorder) (72.7%) and a median age of 38 (IQR: 28.0, 52.0) years. In the multivariable analysis, anxiety disorders (RR: 0.63, CI: 0.4, 0.99) and personality disorders (RR: 0.52, CI: 0.32, 0.85) were significantly associated with a shorter LOS when compared to individuals without those disorders. Additionally, when compared to hospital admissions for non-substance related disorders the LOS for patients with substance-related disorders were significantly shorter during the COVID period (RR: 0.45, CI: 0.30, 0.67) and pre-COVID period (RR: 0.31, CI: 0.21, 0.46).

Conclusions: We observed a significant difference in the type and length of admissions for various psychiatric disorders during the COVID-19 period. These findings can support systems of care in adapting to utilization changes during pandemics or other global health events.

Citing Articles

Patterns of psychiatric admissions across two major health crises: L' Aquila earthquake and COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Barlattani T, Salfi F, Socci V, Renzi G, D Amelio C, Russo A BMC Psychiatry. 2024; 24(1):658.

PMID: 39379917 PMC: 11460219. DOI: 10.1186/s12888-024-06078-3.

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