Observational studyHealth affairs (Project Hope)2022
Trends In Outpatient Mental Health Services Use Before And During The COVID-19 Pandemic.
Observational study in Health affairs (Project Hope), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Access and use of general and mental health services before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Peer Support Services in the Veterans Health Administration: Lessons for Healthcare Organizations.Administration and policy in mental health · 2026Article
- Mental Health Service use and Expenditures among Medicare Beneficiaries with Depression, Diabetes and Heart Disease after Cost-sharing Parity.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental and psychiatric service utilization in Iran: a 7-year longitudinal study from 2017 to 2024.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Telehealth and the work behavior of mental health clinicians.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Severe Outcomes and Length of Stay Among People With Schizophrenia Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Rural-Urban and Racial-Ethnic Differences in Tele-Behavioral Health Access for Medicaid Beneficiaries.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2026Article
- Increasing resilience to stress by home-based transcranial stimulation.Research square · 2025Article
- National Prescribing Trends and Cost Analysis of Antidepressants, Anxiolytics, and Hypnotics in England, 2010-2023.Human psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on healthcare programs in Zimbabwe: a mixed methods study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Medicare Parity and Outpatient Mental Health Service Use and Costs Among Beneficiaries With Depression.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Observational
- A population-based cohort to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on socioeconomic inequalities in mental health care in Italy (CoMeH): study protocol.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Changes in Antipsychotic Medication Adherence Among Medicaid Beneficiaries with Schizophrenia During COVID-19.Administration and policy in mental health · 2025Article
- Gaps in psychiatric care before and after the COVID-19 pandemic among patients with depression using electronic health records.Psychiatry research · 2025Article
- Race and Ethnicity and Diffusion of Telemedicine in Medicaid for Schizophrenia Care After Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Change in mental health service utilization from pre- to post-COVID-19 period in the United States.Heliyon · 2024Article
- The Mediating Role of Hesitancy in the Associations Between Mental Disorders and Social Support Seeking During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Telehealth Utilization Among Adult Medicaid Beneficiaries in North Carolina with Behavioral Health Conditions During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2024Article
- Self-Pay Outpatient Mental Health Care for Children and Adolescents, by Socioeconomic Status.Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted mental health services delivery across the US, but the extent and implications of these disruptions are unclear. This retrospective observational analysis used the claims clearinghouse Office Ally to compare outpatient mental health services use from March to December 2016-18 against use during the same period in 2020. We identified encounters for people ages twelve and older with primary diagnosis codes corresponding to mental health conditions and categorized encounters as in-person or telehealth, using Current Procedural Terminology and place-of-service codes. In-person mental health encounters were reduced by half in the early months of the pandemic, with rapid recovery of service delivery attributable to telehealth uptake (accounting for 47.9 percent of average monthly encounters). We found variation in the degree to which telehealth use increased across groups: People with schizophrenia made up a lower proportion of telehealth encounters relative to in-person visits (1.7 percent versus 2.7 percent), whereas those with anxiety and fear-related disorders accounted for a higher proportion (27.5 percent versus 25.5 percent). These findings highlight the importance of broadening access to services through new modalities without supplanting necessary in-person care for certain groups.
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