Evolution of psychiatry- and addiction-related visits in an emergency department before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown: a retrospective study.

PURPOSE: The first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic were a period of stress, uncertainty, and major disruptions due to the lockdown. We aimed to study the variation in psychiatry-related and addiction-related visits to the emergency department during the first COVID-19 lockdown compared with pre-lockdown periods. METHODS: We examined psychiatry-related and addiction-related visits to the emergency department of Calais Hospital before and during the lockdown in France. We analyzed the differences between the periods by (1) comparing means and medians, (2) performing modeling using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) and an autoregressive integrated moving average model with exogenous variables (ARIMAX), and (3) identifying breakpoints in the time series. RESULTS: For psychiatry-related visits, the mean was higher before the lockdown (4.05) compared to during the lockdown (2.36, p < 0.001). A negative slope of -0.55 (p < 0.001) was found with the GLMM, confirming the decrease. The ARIMAX yielded similar results (slope: -1.74, p < 0.001). There was a breakpoint in the time series 11 days before the lockdown. For addiction-related visits, the mean was lower before the lockdown (0.8) compared to during the lockdown (1.46, p = 0.044). The GLMM found a positive slope of 0.62 (p = 0.005), confirming the increase and the ARIMAX showed similar results (slope: 0.74, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: During the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, psychiatry-related visits to the emergency department decreased, while addiction-related visits increased. The decrease in psychiatric visits began before the first COVID-19 lockdown.