Pandemic Sparks Increase in Mental Health, Substance Use Outpatient Visits Among Physicians

The number of outpatient visits for mental health and substance use by physicians jumped 27% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, astudy published today inJAMA Network Open has found.“We observed increases in mental health and substance use visits during the COVID-19 pandemic that, consistent with surveys finding high levels of self-reported anxiety, depression, and stress in physicians during the pandemic, may indicate worsening physician mental health,” wrote Daniel T. Myr an, M.D., M.P.H., of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada and colleagues.The researchers analyzed data from the records of 34,055 practicing physicians in the Ontario Health Insurance Plan from March 1, 2017, to March 10, 2021, to determine the participants ’ rates of in-person or virtual outpatient visits to a psychiatrist or family medicine and general practice clinicians related to mental health and substance use. They compared the physicians’ visits during the first year of the pandemic in Ontario (March 11, 2020, to March 10, 2021) with those recorded before the pandemic.The annual crude number of visits per 1,000 physicians rose from 816.8 before the pandemic to 1,375.5 during the pandemic. After adjusting for demographic and physician characteristics and a history of health care use related to mental health, visits increased by an average of 13% per physician. The largest relative increases in the rate of visits occurred among physicians who did not have a history of ment...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: COVID-19 in-person visits JAMA Network Open mental health pandemic physicians psychiatrists substance use virtual visits Source Type: research