Emergency psychiatry services in pandemia: Is it different than before?

29th European Congress of Psychiatry , Florence, İtalya, 1 - 30 Nisan 2021, cilt.64, ss.707

Introduction: After World Health Organization declared that

COVID-19 disease became a pandemic; like most, people in Turkey

were affected by the emotionally challenging atmosphere. Previous

outbreaks negatively effected mental health, increased suicide

attempts and completed suicides.

Objectives: Our study aimed to investigate psychiatry consultations

from emergency service in a university hospital, to determine

differencies in pandemia.

Methods: We conducted a monocenter retrospective study by

examining the patients who applied to emergency servise and

consulted to psychiatry department in three periods: between

11 March- 11 July, in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Patient’s sociodemographic

and clinical variables were assessed.

Results:

There were no difference in distributions of applicants’ following

variables between periods; age, sex, marital status, experiencing a

first attack or an exacerbation, or outcome treatment. Among

applicants with suicide attempts, there were no difference between

periods in terms of the presence of recurrent suicide attempt (χ² =

0.297 p = 0.862). While emergency admissions with behavioral

disorders increased, admissions with depressive symptoms

decreased. Admissions with suicide attempts were statistically significantly

higher in 2020 (Table 1). Recommendation of psychiatric

inpatient treatment did not change between periods, while refusal

of hospitalization recommendation decreased (Table 2).

Conclusions: In our sample, emergency psychiatry admissions

with behaviour disorders and suicide attempts increased in pandemic

period.