ED Visits for Behavioral Health Are Prevalent During the Pandemic—Are You Ready for the Same?

It’s been assumed for close to a year that the isolation and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic would take a toll on our collective sense of wellbeing and peace of mind. Those consequences are now being borne out in data on presentations to the emergency room for mental health conditions, suicide attempts, drug overdoses, intimate partner violence, and child abuse or neglect. All  increased as a percentage of overall ED visits over a 7-month period in the thick of the pandemic vs the same period the previous year, according to an article just published by JAMA Psychiatry. It also implies that patients in need may be more hesitant to seek out private mental health professionals at such a time. The data were derived from a cross-sectional study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program to examine national changes in ED visits for the specific complaints mentioned above from December 30, 2018 (before the pandemic) to October 10, 2020 (months into the pandemic). If we’ve learned anything about trends in ED visits, it’s that visits to urgent care centers are likely to follow suit to some extent. JUCM explored the issue of offering behavioral health services in an urgent care center in an interview with an expert on the subject. You can read Psychiatric Treatment as an Urgent Care Model in our archive.