Mental health in children and adolescents during the pandemic year 2020: Results from a department of child and adolescent psychiatry in Romania

INTRODUCTION: Infectious diseases can disrupt the environment in which children live and have negative consequences for the well-being, development and mental health of this population. OBJECTIVES: Our aim is to compare the number and diagnoses of patients admitted during the first COVID-19 pandemic year to patients admitted during the same period in the previous year. METHODS: Retrospective observational study of patients admitted between March 1, 2020 and February 29, 2021 and the analogous period of 2019-2020 in a child psychiatry unit. Microsoft Excel was used for descriptive statistics. RESULTS: In our first pandemic year, there were 47.9% less admissions to our inpatient unit (n=717), comparing to the previous year (n=1376). Regarding the outpatient-type evaluations, there were 37.7% more admissions than the previous year (n=1813). Considering the fact that the number of inpatiens was limited in 2020 due to the restrictive measures imposed, most of our patients were consulted on an outpatient basis. During the 5 weeks nationwide lockdown, 72 children were consulted, 42.8% representing psychiatry emergencies. Regarding the diagnoses made in the whole pandemic year, disorders of psychological development were the most common, with almost half of the total of admissions (44.4%). The number of autistic outpatients in the pandemic year (n=1004) was almost double than the one before (n=572). CONCLUSIONS: Even though there was a reduction of admissions to the child psychiatry inpatient unit during the first pandemic year, we did not identify major differences regarding the discharge diagnoses comparing to the year before. DISCLOSURE: No significant relationships.