The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on mental health services: a comparison between first psychiatric consultations before and after the pandemic

Objective: A high rate of onset or exacerbation of several mental disorders has been observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the risk contributing to mental distress during the pandemic remains unclear. The study aims to evaluate the risk of the onset of mental disorders by comparing the number of requests for the first psychiatric consultation before and after the COVID-19 pandemic at the psychiatric outpatient services of Varese, a small town in Northern Italy. Method: This observational retrospective study aims to compare the requests for the first psychiatric consultation at the outpatient services of Varese during the 14-month period before COVID-19 pandemic (from 1st January 2019 to 28th February 2020) versus the 14-month period after the pandemic (from 1st March 2020 to 31st May 2021) extracted from the server SIPRL-Psicheweb database (Sistema Informativo della Psichiatria, Lombardy Region). For each patient, socio-demographic features and clinical data (psychiatric diagnosis, psychiatric comorbidities, previous psychiatric records, and previous hospitalization in the psychiatric ward) were collected. Results: Three hundred ninety-five consultations were made during the pre-COVID period and 346 during the post-COVID period. No statistically significant difference was found between the number of first consultation requests in the two periods evaluated but a slight decrease in the total number during the pandemic period (395 vs 346; p=0.07) can be noticed. In the subjects of the pre-COVID group, a statistically significant association was detected with no previous psychiatric records (“absent”) and with stressor-related disorders. In the post-COVID group, a statistically significant correlation between “present” previous records and anxiety-depressive disorders emerged. Conclusions: It has been observed that anxiety-depressive disorders increased in the post-COVID-19 period compared to the pre-COVID-19, instead of stressor-related disorders. This might be because stressor-related disorders may be treated by general practitioners with no psychiatric interventions. Most of the first consultations during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic were for patients who already had contact with psychiatric services. The study shows an increasing request for care by more severe patients in the first phase of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Further research is needed to investigate the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency departments and hospital services.