Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health outcomes in a cohort of early psychosis patients.

AIM: To evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical outcomes, we used data from Electronic Health Records from 128 patients receiving care at a First Episode Psychosis clinic. METHODS: Rates of admission or emergency room (ER) visits from January 2020 to July 2020 were analysed using difference-in-difference regression. We used the same weeks in 2019 to control for seasonality. RESULTS: We found 17 hospitalizations or ER visits between 1 January 2020 and 13 March 2020 (incidence rate: 71.4 events/1000 person-weeks) and 6 between 14 March 2020 and 20 June 2020 (incidence rate: 18.5 events/1000 person-weeks) for an incidence rate ratio of 0.26. The severity of presentation worsened after transition to telemedicine. No signs of significant interruptions of care were found. CONCLUSIONS: We report that patients have avoided accessing higher levels of care, except in extreme cases. We argue that this is not a sustainable trajectory and that public health actions are required.