SynthesisFrontiers in psychiatry2022
Who is afraid of Christmas? The effect of Christmas and Easter holidays on psychiatric hospitalizations and emergencies-Systematic review and single center experience from 2012 to 2021.
Synthesis in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Suicide risk on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and Valentine's Day: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
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 at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Major holidays such as Christmas and New Year's Eve are regular occasions for get-togethers in families and other social groups. Socially, these days are often loaded with memories and expectations but also involve the potential for interpersonal tension and conflicts and disappointments. In addition, loneliness might also be most intense during these days. All these factors might lead to the expectation of increased mental distress and subsequently increased help-seeking in psychiatric contexts resulting in emergency psychiatric contacts, psychiatric hospitalizations, and even suicidal behavior. But is there evidence for increased psychiatric emergencies and hospitalizations around the days of Christmas? Methods: The existing evidence is systematically reviewed here (studies in PubMed in English investigating annual and Christmas-related variations in suicide (attempts), psychiatric emergencies and hospitalizations, last search date (13.07.2022) and complemented by an analysis of acute admissions at the University Psychiatry Clinics Basel, Switzerland, around Christmas and Easter holidays compared to the other days of the year. Easter was chosen as a comparison holiday. Results: In 25 reviewed studies, Christmas holidays were not associated with increased utilization of emergency psychiatric services. In contrast, hospitalizations were lower on Christmas and other holidays than the rest of the year. Analyzing the annual variation of 26,088 hospitalizations in our center between 2012 and 2021 revealed the same pattern. Conclusion: The assumption of increased utilization of psychiatric emergency services on Christmas and other major holidays is not confirmed by multiple studies around the globe in various socio-cultural and medical settings. The study is registered in the international prospective register for systematic reviews (PROSPERO; 351057). Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier 351057.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.