Yassir Mahgoub, Lauren N Forrest, Joy Luther, Nirmal Singh, Jason Kibler, Jason Noel, David Zug, Alison Swigart, Elisabeth Kunkel
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had extensive impacts on mental health care delivery. Anecdotal observations of inpatient care teams at Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute suggested increased patient acuity during the pandemic. The authors found no consensus definition for measuring psychiatric acuity in the literature. We performed an interrupted time series analysis to identify whether COVID-19 was associated with changes in several hospital parameters that might reflect our patients' access to psychiatric services and acuity. We found increases in inpatient parameters for length of stay, rates of involuntary admissions, and the incidence of restraints, seclusion, and 1:1 observation orders. Observing these increasing trends can inform mitigation efforts to improve the quality of mental health care treatment and care delivery. We suggest the use of these metrics for objective measurements of psychiatric acuity.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease publishes peer-reviewed articles containing new data or ways of reorganizing established knowledge relevant to understanding and modifying human behavior, especially that defined as impaired or diseased, and the context, applications and effects of that knowledge. Our policy is summarized by the slogan, "Behavioral science for clinical practice." We consider articles that include at least one behavioral variable, clear definition of study populations, and replicable research designs. Authors should use the active voice and first person whenever possible.