Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36509936›Full record

ArticleCommunity mental health journal2023

Psychiatric Emergencies in Los Angeles County During, and After, Initial COVID-19 Societal Restrictions: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.

Tim A Bruckner, Shutong Huo, Michael Huynh, Senxi Du, Andrew Young, Annie Ro

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In one paragraph

Article in Community mental health journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Utilization of mental health services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic - a systematic review and meta-analysis.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026
    Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Observational
  4. Observational
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Tim A BrucknerProgram in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA. tim.bruckner@uci.edu.
Shutong HuoProgram in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-7893-8037
Michael HuynhProgram in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA.
Senxi DuDavid Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA.
Andrew YoungHarbor UCLA Medical Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA.
Annie RoProgram in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Emergency department (ED) visits for psychiatric care in the US reportedly declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work, however, does not control for strong temporal patterning in visits before the pandemic and does not examine a potential "rebound" in demand for psychiatric care following the relaxation of initial societal restrictions. Here, we examine COVID-19-related perturbations in psychiatric care during and after the 1st stage of societal restrictions in the largest safety-net hospital in Los Angeles. We retrieved psychiatric ED visit data (98,888 total over 156 weeks, Jan 2018 to Dec 2020) from Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center. We applied interrupted time series methods to identify and control for autocorrelation in psychiatric ED visits before examining their relation with the 1st stage of societal restrictions (i.e., March 13 to May 8, 2020), as well as the subsequent "rebound" period of relaxed restrictions (i.e., after May 8, 2020). Psychiatric ED visits fell by 78.13 per week (i.e., 12%) during the 1st stage of societal restrictions (SD = 23.99, p < 0.01). Reductions in ED visits for alcohol use, substance use, and (to a lesser extent) anxiety disorders accounted for the overall decline. After the 1st stage of societal restrictions, however, we observe no "rebound" above expected values in psychiatric ED visits overall (coef = - 16.89, SD = 20.58, p = 0.41) or by diagnostic subtype. This pattern of results does not support speculation that, at the population level, foregoing ED care during initial societal restrictions subsequently induced a psychiatric "pandemic" of urgent visits.

Indexed as

COVID-19EmergenciesEmergency Service, HospitalHumansInterrupted Time Series AnalysisLos AngelesPandemicsRetrospective StudiesCOVID-19 pandemicMental health servicesPsychiatric emergency room visitsSocietal restrictions

Identifiers

PMID36509936
PMCPMC9744376

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.