Child and adolescent psychiatric emergency admissions before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic: An Interrupted time series analysis from Turkey.

BACKGROUND: Acute psychiatric care of youth is paramount as prompt evaluation is known to mitigate potentially catastrophic outcomes in the future. The aim of this study was to analyze changes in child and adolescent psychiatric (CAP) emergency admissions within a 4-year period, including the pandemic course. METHODS: Electronic patient health records of children and adolescents aged 0-18 years, admitted to the pediatric emergency department (ED) for psychiatric complaints between January 2018-December 2021, were retrospectively reviewed (n = 2014). Data including the age, sex, presenting complaint and preliminary diagnosis, length of stay in the ED, and history of previous psychiatric outpatient/emergency admissions were recorded. Interrupted Time series analysis was conducted to detect changes. RESULTS: During the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic period (March 2020); low-risk suicide attempts (60.6%;IRR=0.394;CI=0.216-0.718), high-risk suicide attempts (82.2%;IRR=0.178;CI=0.070-0.457), manic symptoms (87.9%;IRR=0.121;CI=0.016-0.896), and total CAP emergency admissions were found to have decreased (30.7%;IRR=0.693;CI=0.543-0.885). CAP consultations due to general medical conditions were found to have increased by 7.3% (IRR=1.073;CI=1.019-1.130), and total CAP emergency admissions showed a mild increase of 1.8% (IRR=1.018;CI=1.001-1.036) through April 2020 to December 2021. CONCLUSION: While suicide attempts, manic symptoms, and total CAP emergency admissions decreased during the first month of the pandemic, there was an increase in total CAP emergency admissions, especially in general medical conditions presenting with psychiatric symptoms during the following pandemic period. This study highlights the importance of accounting for underlying medical conditions in patients presenting with psychiatric complaints to the ED in the normalization phase. AVAILABILITY OF THE DATA AND MATERIAL: The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the present study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.