Gaps in psychiatric care before and after the COVID-19 pandemic among patients with depression using electronic health records

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption to health services. It is unclear if there were inequalities in the continuity of mental health care in the years around the COVID-19 pandemic. We used electronic health records (EHR) to detect mental health care gaps of more than six months in psychiatric appointments across demographic and socioeconomic characteristics among patients with depression. The analysis included patients with depression who were seen at one of two mental health clinics every year of 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022 (n = 783 patients). First, we found that the odds of mental health care gaps significantly decreased in the post-pandemic period (2021-2022) relative to the pre-pandemic period (2018-2019). Second, in the pre-pandemic period, patients who lived in areas in the highest tertile of deprivation had greater odds of gaps in mental health care relative to those in the lowest tertile (aOR: 2.18 [95 % CI: 1.02, 4.68]). Males had higher odds of gaps in care than females in the post-pandemic period (aOR: 2.22 [1.13, 4.37]) and the pooled pre- and post-pandemic study period (aOR: 1.58 [1.04, 2.40]). Third, interactions between patient characteristics and time were not significant, suggesting that the change in the odds of gaps of mental health care before relative to after the COVID-19 pandemic did not differ significantly based on patient characteristics. Overall, gaps in care decreased in the post-pandemic period relative to the pre-pandemic period among almost all patient groups.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Electronic health records; Epidemiologic methods; Healthcare disparities; Mental health services; Mood disorders; Psychiatry and sociology.