ArticleEpidemiology and health2023
Changes in mental health service utilization before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide database analysis in Korea.
Article in Epidemiology and health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- 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 · 2026Pooled it
- Evolution of Paris' public hospital psychiatrics outpatients from 2019 to 2023: a retrospective cohort study.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Trends in Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits Among Adolescents and Young Adults: A Nationwide, Population-Based Study in Korea, 2017-2021.Journal of Korean medical science · 2025Article
- Disability-based disparities under universal health coverage among chronically ill adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia: an interrupted time series analysis.Global health action · 2025Article
- Factors Associated with Leaving Ambulatory Psychiatric Treatment in a Large, Academic Health System During the COVID-19 Pandemic.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital admissions for psychiatric disorders: results from the multicentre study on the Italian population "COVID-19 and Mental Health" (CoMeH).BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Increasing incidence of ADHD among children, adolescents and young adults: COVID-19 pandemic-driven trend in Korea (2012-2023).BMJ mental health · 2025Observational
- 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
- Impact of COVID-19 on emergency department visits for individuals with psychotic disorders in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada: A longitudinal study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Changes in psychiatric disorder incidence patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea: a study using the nationwide universal health insurance data.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Incidence of Panic Disorder Diagnoses After Celebrity Disclosures of Panic Disorder in South Korea.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Adult Mental Health Presentations to Emergency Departments in Victoria, Australia between January 2018 and October 2020: Changes Associated with COVID-19 Pandemic Public Health Restrictions.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2024Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to mental health services and socioeconomic inequalities in Italy.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Trends in telemedicine utilization for mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of a nationwide database in Korea.BMC psychiatry · 2023Observational
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe present study examined the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on mental health service utilization through a comparative analysis of nationwide data regarding inpatient care users, outpatient visits, emergency department (ED) visits, and admissions via the ED before and during the pandemic.
methodsData from approximately 350,000 Koreans diagnosed with mental illness were analyzed in terms of hospitalization, outpatient visits, and ED visits between January 2018 and June 2021. An interrupted time series analysis was conducted to determine the significance of changes in mental health service utilization indicators.
resultsThe number of hospital admissions per patient decreased by 1.2% at the start of the pandemic and 0.7% afterward. The length of hospital stay increased by 1.8% at the outbreak of the pandemic, and then decreased by 20.2%. Although the number of outpatients increased, the number of outpatient visits per patient decreased; the number of outpatient visits for schizophrenia (3.4%) and bipolar disorder (3.5%) significantly decreased immediately post-outbreak. The number of ED visits per patient decreased both immediately post-outbreak and afterward, and ED visits for schizophrenia (19.2%), bipolar disorder (22.3%), and depression (17.4%) decreased significantly immediately post-outbreak. Admissions via the ED did not show a significant change immediately post-outbreak.
conclusionsMental health service utilization increased during the pandemic, but medical service use decreased overall, with a particularly significant decrease in ED utilization. As the pandemic worsened, the decline in outpatient visits became more pronounced among those with severe mental illness.
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