Adolescent psychiatric outpatient care rapidly switched to remote visits during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19-pandemic and especially the physical distancing measures drastically changed the conditions for providing outpatient care in adolescent psychiatry. Methods: We investigated the outpatient services of adolescent psychiatry in the Helsinki University Hospital (HUH) from 1/1/2015 until 12/31/2020. We retrieved data from the in-house data software on the number of visits in total and categorized as in-person or remote visits, and analysed the data on a weekly basis. We further analysed these variables grouped according to the psychiatric diagnoses coded for visits. Data on the number of patients and on referrals from other health care providers were available on a monthly basis. We investigated the data descriptively and with a time-series analysis comparing the pre-pandemic period to the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: The total number of visits decreased slightly at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020. Remote visits sharply increased starting in 3/2020 and remained at a high level compared with previous years. In-person visits decreased in Spring 2020, but gradually increased afterwards. The number of patients transiently fell in Spring 2020. Conclusions: Rapid switch to remote visits in outpatient care of adolescent psychiatry made it possible to avoid a drastic drop in the number of visits despite the physical distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.