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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1414248
This article is part of the Research Topic Psychosocial Factors, Mental Comorbidities and Related Biomarkers Interacting with the Onset and Course of Somatic Diseases View all 6 articles

Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on psychiatric and psychological consultation-liaison contacts in a general hospital in North-East of Italy: a retrospective study

Provisionally accepted
Eleonora Prina Eleonora Prina 1*Alice Marquis Alice Marquis 1Federico Tedeschi Federico Tedeschi 1Laura Rabbi Laura Rabbi 1Damiano Salazzari Damiano Salazzari 1Mario Ballarin Mario Ballarin 1Marianna Purgato Marianna Purgato 1Giovanni Ostuzzi Giovanni Ostuzzi 1Valeria Donisi Valeria Donisi 2Cinzia Perlini Cinzia Perlini 2Michela Rimondini Michela Rimondini 2Lidia Del Piccolo Lidia Del Piccolo 2Francesco Amaddeo Francesco Amaddeo 2
  • 1 Section of Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
  • 2 Section of Clinical Psychology, Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted significant changes in healthcare, particularly affecting psychiatric and psychological Consultation-Liaison (CL) services in general hospital settings.To assess the effects of COVID-19-related restrictions on utilization of psychiatric and psychological CL services in Northeast Italy during 2020, and to compare it to the use of services in the previous year (2019).Methods. The study collected data on psychiatric and psychological consultations in 2019 and 2020 from a hospital database. It categorizes consultations by type of patient (inpatient or outpatient) and referral source (hospital wards, general practitioners, other specialists). Pandemic-related restrictions were classified as "lockdown," "intermediate restrictions," and "no or reduced restrictions" based on the Covid Stringency Index (CSI). Poisson regression models were employed to analyze the data.Results. The findings reveal a significant 28% increase in the number of psychiatric and psychological consultations in 2020. Consultations for outpatients increased by 51%, while those for inpatients decreased by 11%. However, the lockdown and intermediate restriction phases were deemed responsible of a decrease of 42.9% and 19.5% in consultations respectively.Discussion. This study highlights the persistent psychological burden during the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside reduced CL services due to lockdown measures. Integrating telemedicine into these types of services becomes imperative for meeting patient needs during restrictions. These findings can inform policies and practices to improve effective mental health care delivery during and beyond pandemics. Future research should explore the impact of pandemic-related restrictions on mental healthcare across settings and clinical factors affecting service accessibility.

    Keywords: Consultation-liaison, Psychiatry, Psychology, COVID-19 pandemic, Mental Health Services, General Hospitals

    Received: 08 Apr 2024; Accepted: 14 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Prina, Marquis, Tedeschi, Rabbi, Salazzari, Ballarin, Purgato, Ostuzzi, Donisi, Perlini, Rimondini, Del Piccolo and Amaddeo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Eleonora Prina, Section of Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

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