ArticleAnnals of general psychiatry2022
A comparative analysis of pediatric mental health-related emergency department utilization in Montréal, Canada, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Annals of general psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Gender disparities in hospital admission patterns during the COVID-19 health emergency: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Scoping review of precision child and youth mental health research: dwelling in possibility.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Consequences of the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on child and adolescent mental, psychosocial, and physical health: A scoping review and interactive evidence map.Journal of child health care : for professionals working with children in the hospital and community · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on administrative eating disorder prevalence in the outpatient sector and on severity of anorexia nervosa.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- 'We tried our best... it wasn't great': a qualitative study of clinician experiences on child psychiatry wards at the height of COVID-19.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health-related hospitalization rate of youth in Canada: an interrupted time series analysis.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2024Article
- Effects of COVID-19-targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions on pediatric hospital admissions in North Italian hospitals, 2017 to 2022: a quasi-experimental study interrupted time-series analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Mental Health of Children and Adolescents before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Did the Lockdown Modify Psychiatric Emergencies in Tuscany, Italy?Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation in a population-based cohort of young adults before and during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2023Article
- Characteristics of suicidal emergency room patients before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2023Article
- Has Anything Changed in the Frequency of Emergency Department Visits and the Profile of the Adolescent Seeking Emergency Mental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic?Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Emergency department visits and boarding for pediatric patients with suicidality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2023Article
- Psychological disorders and suicide attempts in youths during the pre-COVID and post-COVID era in a Taiwan pediatric emergency department.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundReports on longitudinal trends in mental health-related (MHR) emergency department (ED) utilization spanning the pre- and post-pandemic periods are lacking, along with evidence comparing healthcare services utilization by sociodemographic subgroups. The aim of this study was to evaluate COVID-19-associated changes in MHR ED utilization among youth overall and by age, sex, and socio-economic status (SES).
methodsThis retrospective cross-sectional study analyzed MHR ED utilization before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at a large urban pediatric tertiary care hospital in Montréal, Canada. All ED visits for children (5-11 years) and adolescents (12-17 years) between April 1, 2016 and November 30, 2021 were included. The main outcome was the monthly count of MHR ED visits. Pre-pandemic and pandemic periods were compared using an interrupted time series design. The effect of seasonality (in months), age (in years), sex (male or female), and SES (low, average, high) were compared using a generalized additive model.
resultsThere were a total of 437,147 ED visits (204,215 unique patients) during the 5-year study period of which 9748 (5.8%) were MHR visits (7,686 unique patients). We observed an increase of 69% (95% CI, + 53% to + 85%; p = 0.001) in the mean monthly count of MHR ED visits during the pandemic period, which remained significant after adjusting for seasonality (44% increase, 95% CI, + 38% to + 51%; p = 0.001). The chance of presenting for a MHR ED visit increased non-linearly with age. There were increased odds of presenting for a MHR ED visit among girls between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.29-1.56). No difference by SES group during and before the COVID-19 pandemic was found [OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.89-1.15 (low); OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.96-1.25 (high)].
conclusionsOur study shows important increases in MHR ED utilization among youth, and especially among girls, during the first 20 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for sustained, targeted and scalable mental health resources to support youth mental health during the current and future crises.
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