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| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2021 | Volume
: 7
| Issue : 2 | Page : 120-125 |
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Assessment and Comparison of the Mental Health Status of Patients Seeking Psychiatry Facilities in Pre-lockdown and Post-lockdown Period During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study in a Tertiary Care Centre in a Hilly Region of North India
Devesh Sharma1, Sunny Garg2, Anchal Sharma3, Dinesh Dutt Sharma1, Nidhi Sharma1, Simran Gupta1, Shivam Sharma1
1 Department of Psychiatry, Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India
2 Department of Psychiatry, Bhagat Phool Singh Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Haryana, India
3 Department of Radio Diagnosis, Maharishi Markendeshwar Medical College and Hospital, Kumarhatti, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India
| Date of Submission | 18-Mar-2021 |
| Date of Decision | 18-Apr-2021 |
| Date of Acceptance | 18-May-2021 |
| Date of Web Publication | 27-Aug-2021 |
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Sunny Garg
S/o Sh. Suresh Kumar, Bhagat Phool Singh Medical College for Women Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat-131305, Haryana
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/mamcjms.mamcjms_29_21
Background: The servicing and framework for mental health care accessible to population have been affected during the unprecedented times of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The new and almost exclusive method to maintain a therapeutic alliance with these patients has been the recently evolving telepsychiatry services. Aim and Objectives: The main aim of the study was to assess and compare the mental health status of patients seeking available psychiatry facilities in pre-lockdown and post-lockdown period during COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study that was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in a hilly region of North India. The registered data was analyzed between January 1, 2020 to March 21, 2020 to gather the information of patients about sociodemographic profile and clinical diagnosis on the basis of International Classification of Diseases-10. The retrieved data constituted 499 new consecutive patients during this period. Then in the post-lockdown phase after the resumption of OPD services in the institute (May 3, 2020), the data collection was initiated to collect a similar sample size of new consecutive patients (501). These data were collected over 151 days (May 3, 2020 to September 30, 2020). Results: A total number of 1000 patients were analyzed. Majority of the patients were male (66%) and within 19 to 60 years of age (85–90%). The average number of patients (3.31) seen per day was less and the average age of the patients (39.17 years, standard deviation = 14.37) was significantly higher in the post-lockdown phase. The most common diagnostic group consisted of neurotic/stress-related/somatoform disorders. As compared to the pre-lockdown period, a significantly (P < 0.001) lower number of patients diagnosed with substance use disorders and a significantly (P < 0.001) higher number of patients diagnosed with psychotic disorders along with anxiety disorders availed the available psychiatry services in the period of COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: Sudden cessation of the psychiatry services further precipitated the deterioration of mental health of the patients. There is an urgent demand for services to adapt to changing scenarios with emphasis on practical approaches to help the mentally ill people especially in geographically difficult hilly areas.
Keywords: Anxiety disorders, coronavirus disease pandemic, pre-lockdown, post-lockdown, telepsychiatry services
How to cite this article:
Sharma D, Garg S, Sharma A, Sharma DD, Sharma N, Gupta S, Sharma S. Assessment and Comparison of the Mental Health Status of Patients Seeking Psychiatry Facilities in Pre-lockdown and Post-lockdown Period During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study in a Tertiary Care Centre in a Hilly Region of North India. MAMC J Med Sci 2021;7:120-5 |
How to cite this URL:
Sharma D, Garg S, Sharma A, Sharma DD, Sharma N, Gupta S, Sharma S. Assessment and Comparison of the Mental Health Status of Patients Seeking Psychiatry Facilities in Pre-lockdown and Post-lockdown Period During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study in a Tertiary Care Centre in a Hilly Region of North India. MAMC J Med Sci [serial online] 2021 [cited 2023 Mar 25];7:120-5. Available from: https://www.mamcjms.in/text.asp?2021/7/2/120/324740 |
| Introduction | |  |
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the corona virus experiences mild to moderate respiratory problems and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people and those with underlying medical problems such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer are more likely to develop serious illnesses. However, there are many ongoing clinical trials evaluating potential treatments.[1]
WHO and public health authorities around the world acted to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. In support of this onnd March 22, 2020, India observed a 14-hour voluntary public curfew. It was followed by mandatory lockdowns in COVID-19 hotspots and all major cities fromth March 24, 2020, affecting the entire 1.3 billion population of India.[1] Owing to closure of public transport, people faced many difficulties in attending the emergency and OPD services. Health care system except the emergency services became unreachable to the patients affected with other illnesses as most of the available resources were directed for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] Along with other specialties, psychiatry facilities were also affected significantly. This led to inconvenience for patients as many with regular follow-up were left confused regarding renewal of their treatment prescription.[3]
Lockdown and this COVID-19 pandemic generated stress throughout the population like other outbreaks in the past.[4] These uprisings contribute to long-term mental health effects in not just victims/survivors but also other members of the community (the “Spill-over” effect).[5] The stress experiences can range from anxiety to clinical depression, psychosis, substance use disorders (SUDs), and a wide range of other psychological issues in the population and previously affected patients.[4],[5] In a study conducted in 2004 during severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Canada, it was found that there was a high prevalence of psychological distress, including symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among quarantined persons.[6]
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in collaboration with Board of Governors, started the telemedicine services in India as one of the promising approaches to dispense the medical facilities to the people without risking the COVID-19 infection.[7],[8] During the lockdown period, telepsychiatry services other than emergency services augmented the availability of health care system to the people with mental health problems.[9] Accordingly, there is a need to understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the psychiatry services, which has been studied poorly in Indian context as per our knowledge.[9] There are only few studies[10],[11] in India that revealed the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on emergency services only, but no study has been conducted to assess and compare the impact of lockdown on OPD, emergency, and telepsychiatry services. Thus, the present study was conducted in one of the tertiary care centers in a hilly region of North India to analyze the pattern of patient presentation seeking available psychiatry services including telepsychiatry services during COVID-19 pandemic and to compare the same attending the available (OPD and emergency) services before the lockdown period.
| Methodology | | |
Study design and settings
The present study was retrospective cross-sectional in nature conducted in the Department of Psychiatry, Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMCH), Shimla, which is a tertiary care hospital located in hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh in North India. The department caters to the mental health care needs of around 30,000 patients per year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, psychiatry services were provided to all types of patients including self-referred, referred from other departments/hospitals, and emergencies. During the lockdown period, patients were attended only in emergency department. Simultaneously, telepsychiatry services were being given by the department of Psychiatry during this period.[13] During the first phase of the post-lockdown period (i.e., on May 3, 2020), the OPD services were resumed along with already ongoing emergency and telepsychiatry services. The patient coming to the hospital were first screened in the emergency and then referred to avail the psychiatry services. These patients were evaluated by the trainee doctor under the supervision of senior residents and consultants. All the psychiatric diagnoses were made as per the International Classification of Diseases-10[12] and registered by the data operator. Ethical approval was obtained from the Medical Ethics board for releasing the data of patients who sought psychiatry services while ensuring the personal information was kept confidential and anonymity was maintained.
Data collection procedure
This study used the administrative database information about the patients availing psychiatry facilities. The study was started in post-lockdown phase (i.e., on May 3, 2020, after 6 weeks of lockdown). For the purpose of this study, initially data of the new patients (around 499) who had attended psychiatry OPD and emergency services before the implementation of the lockdown period, that is, January 1, 2020 to March 21, 2020 (81 days), were retrieved from the case record files or the registered data. Then, to compare and collect the same sample size (501 new patients), data were collected in post-lockdown periods after the resumption of OPD services along with ongoing emergency services and telepsychiatry consultations, that is, from May 3, 2020 to September 30, 2020. Data regarding the sociodemographic profile (age and gender) and clinical profile (diagnosis and treatment) of the registered patients were gathered from the database information.
Statistical analysis
The data were entered, coded, and analyzed using statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) software version 25.0 (IBM corp., Armonk, New York, USA). Descriptive statistics for the continuous variables were calculated as mean and standard deviation (SD). Categorical variables were calculated as frequencies and percentages. Chi-square test for categorical variables and Student “t” test were used for continuous variables to compare the patient presentation before and after the lockdown periods. Statistical significance of all two-tailed tests was set at P < 0.05.
| Results | | |
A total number of 1000 patients attended OPD, emergency, and telepsychiatry services during the study period (pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phase). Around 499 patients were assessed in the pre-lockdown period (83 days), but a similar number of patients (501) were assessed over longer period of 151 days (post-lockdown phase). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the average number of patients seen per day fell to 3.31, which was nearly double (6.02 patients) during the pre-lockdown phase. In the present study, majority of the patients were male (66%) and the remaining were female patients. Around 85% to 90% patients were within 19 to 60 years of age as shown in [Table 1]. The mean age (39.17 years, SD = 14.37) was significantly (P < 0.001) higher for the patients assessed in post-lockdown period as compared to the mean age (38.32 years, SD = 15.58) of the patients evaluated in pre-lockdown phase. In the post-lockdown phase, there was a significant decrease in the number of adolescent patients (<18 years of age), while there was no significant change in proportions of elderly and adult patients utilizing the psychiatry services [Table 1]. | Table 1 Sociodemographic characteristics of the patients attending psychiatry services
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Before the lockdown, the most common diagnoses were anxiety disorders (neurotic/stress-related/somatoform disorders) (41%), followed by SUDs (34%), mood disorders (20%), and schizophrenia with acute and transient psychotic disorder (ATPD) or other psychotic disorders (5%). [Table 2] shows that in the post-lockdown phase, the most common diagnoses were neurotic/stress-related/somatoform disorders (56%), followed by mood disorders (25%), SUDs (11%), and schizophrenia with ATPD or other psychotic disorders (9%). As compared to pre-lockdown period, a significantly (P < 0.001) lower number of patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence syndrome, opioid dependence syndrome and other substance dependence syndromes (cannabis, tobacco, benzodiazepines, sedatives, cocaine, or multiple substances) attended the available psychiatry services in the period of COVID-19 pandemic. In post-lockdown period, there was significant increase in the number of the patients with diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder/manic episode (P < 0.001), schizophrenia/ATPD/other psychotic disorders (P < 0.001), and anxiety disorders (neurotic/stress-related/somatoform disorders) (P < 0.001). In the post-lockdown period, no significant difference (P = 0.834) was revealed in the proportions of patients diagnosed with depressive disorders as shown in [Table 2]. | Table 2 Clinical diagnosis of the patients attending psychiatry services
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| Discussion | | |
The unexpected closure of routine psychiatry OPDs of the main institution of Himachal Pradesh had left thousands of patients without mental health services around the catchment area of the institution, which provides these services to around five to six adjoining districts (Shimla, Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu, Solan). The only way left for the patients was to apply for COVID-19 curfew passes on health grounds to visit the hospital, where only major emergency services (acute psychosis, suicidal patients, complicated substance withdrawal, etc.) were being provided that also were subject to approval by local authorities on referral from the nearest government health facilities. Moreover, there was a gap of around 4 to 5 weeks between the stoppage of OPD services and establishment of telepsychiatry services by the department of Psychiatry.[13] However, neither of the services were fully apt to address the need of the masses as before the lockdown. Meanwhile many patients started developing new-onset behavioural problems and relapse of severe symptoms along with suicidal behaviour. As the department had a long-standing commitment to the welfare of these patients, they were worried and curious to know the effect of sudden closure of OPDs on mental status of the people. Therefore, the index study was conducted to compare the presentation of the patients attending available psychiatry services (OPD, emergency, and telepsychiatry) in COVID-19 pandemic and in pre-lockdown period.
In the present study, the average number of patients seen per day reduced significantly to half in the post-lockdown period as expected due to restriction in the movement. This finding was in coherence with the observation made by Grover et al.[10] at PGIMER Chandigarh. Unlike other studies,[10],[14] no significant difference was observed in the presentation of male and female patients in the index study as nearly an equal number of male and female patients availed the psychiatric help during both the phases. However, a few studies[10],[11] done during the lockdown period revealed that a larger number of female patients attended psychiatry emergency services allegedly due to increased domestic violence and workload stress at home during the lockdown phase.[14]
The mean age of patients had significantly increased in the post-lockdown phase, which is inconsistent with other studies in which mean age of the patients decreased significantly.[10],[11] It was observed that proportion of adolescent patients decreased significantly as compared to other studies done by Dopfer et al.[15] in Germany and Tartari et al.[16] in Italy. Although there were limited possibilities of severe cases of COVID-19 infection in children,[17] the fear of getting infection while availing the services in hospitals may have influenced parental decision-making during this period.[15] This can also be explained in the background of a few other reasons, such as the lockdown strategies themselves, rigorous social distancing, and parents may have inclined to “wait and watch” when their children fell ill as opposed to immediately presenting to the hospitals.[15] Contrary to other studies where proportion of elderly patients had decreased,[18] the number of elderly patients was nearly the same during both the observation periods of the present study.
Similar to another study done in India,[10] the proportion of adult patients had increased insignificantly. A KFF Health Tracking Poll from United States also reported that about 50% adults reported negative impacts on their mental well-being.[19] The reason for increased presentation of adult patients could be less fear of movement somewhat indicated by regularly running OPDs. During the pandemic, younger people were the most affected population and more apprehensive about acquiring the infection,[20] leading to more attendance of these patients in psychiatry OPDs in the post-lockdown phase.
Similar to the study done previously by Sidana et al.,[21] it was found that in the present study a large number of patients used the telepsychiatry services to continue with their treatment during the post-lockdown period as compared to pre-lockdown period. A study by Arya and Gupta[22] reported that initiatives like telepsychiatry services were praiseworthy in which patients felt safe and connected with doctors in their physical absence in the hospitals or clinics.
In the present study, most of the patients availing psychiatry services were diagnosed with anxiety disorder, which is in line with a study done in India by Sidana et al.,[21] while delirium was evaluated as the most common diagnosis during COVID-19 pandemic in a study done in emergency setup.[10] Patients with anxiety disorders had a statistically significant increase in presentation in post-lockdown phase in comparison to pre-lockdown period. This is in keeping with many other studies that also found the significant increase in patients with anxiety disorders during the pandemic.[21],[23] This could possibly be explained from the fact that people experienced multiple problems related to the pandemic such as loss of income or job, closure of school and colleges, concern about well-being of their families, social isolation and loneliness due to lockdown that led to anxiety disorders in the population.[19] The prevalence of depression in both the study periods was
nearly similar, maybe due to the fact that lockdown restrictions were relaxed earlier up to some extent in this state and so the potential stressor had probably disappeared from the picture, and thus the findings in patient presentation also support the same. These observations were dissimilar with findings of another study where a large number of the patients developed clinical depression and sought help from psychiatry settings.[24]
Most of the studies conducted during this period revealed that consumption of substance in the population had increased up to 10 to 15 times.[22],[25] However, in index study, it was found that there was significant reduction in the proportion of patients diagnosed with SUDs such as alcohol, opioid, or other multiple substances, implying that certain common variables had led to this decrease in patient footfall. First possible reason might be the closure of liquor shops and difficulty in procuring illegal substances such as cannabis and opioids due to restricted movement of the people during the lockdown phase.[13] Another reason could be that most of the substance consuming patients were not so dependent so as to have significant withdrawal, requiring referral to higher centers or even a medical consultation. The ones having severe withdrawal might have recovered at home or peripheral health institutions during the initial weeks of complete lockdown.
Further, when patients diagnosed with other mental (psychotic) disorders were evaluated and compared, it was seen that there was a significant increase in the presentation of the patients diagnosed with bipolar affective disorders/manic episodes and schizophrenia/ATPD/other psychotic disorders in the post-lockdown phase. Grover et al.[10] and Gonclaves-Pinho et al.[26] also reported a significant increase in the presentation of the patients diagnosed with these psychotic disorders, comparable to the present study. These findings suggested that patients with psychotic features experienced the relapse of the symptoms in the absence of routine OPD services. There were a few plausible reasons for relapse in these patients, such as immediate stoppage of treatment due to difficulties in procuring the medicines without renewal of prescriptions and increase in the level of stress at their home.[9],[10],[11] Another possible reason might be that at the time of lockdown, taken into account these characteristics, adherence to the recommended protective measures and compliance with social isolation may be more difficult for the people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, making this group particularly vulnerable to the limitations imposed by the current pandemic situation and more prone to decompensation.[27] Moreover, lockdown itself had
decreased the movement of the patients to faith healers or other local sources of treatment including primary care. It is also important to consider the seasonal patterns of mood disorders, mainly the evidence for a significant seasonal trend for manic episodes with a peak in spring/summer, also coinciding with the study period during the pandemic.[28]
This study was conducted in an institute that was catering to routine OPDs, emergency, and telepsychiatry services during the post-lockdown phase of the pandemic, thus having sufficient data to find any significant changes in the patient presentation seeking mental health services. This was one of the main strength of the present study as compared to the previous study conducted by Grover et al.[10] during this time period that involved only emergencies services.
The study has several limitations, mainly the inclusion of only a few variables for evaluation. Second, the patient presentation cannot be considered representative of a routine OPD completely as the state-wide lockdown was still persisting to some extent and the patient presentation was somewhat consisting of emergency cases as well because of the implied effort involved in movement. Thirdly, this study was limited to a single center, and so it is not possible to generalize the findings. The impact of the COVID-19 on psychology of patients and other population might be long term or changeable, which needs long-term evaluation.
| Conclusion | | |
The COVID-19 pandemic has intense effect on the available mental health services globally. During the post-lockdown phase, the proportion of the patients seeking psychiatry services had decreased as compared to pre-lockdown period. This study found that a significant decrease was observed in the presentation of patients diagnosed with SUDs. There was a significant increase in anxiety disorders without much change in major depressive disorders. During the post-lockdown period, patients diagnosed with psychotic disorders (schizophrenia/ATPD/other psychotic disorders, bipolar affective disorder/mania) were found to be higher in number. These periods have also warranted additional use of telepsychiatry services to address the problems faced by patients and their treating teams.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
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[Table 1], [Table 2]
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