Patterns of Mental health disorder in Emergency Department of Tertiary care hospital during Nationwide lockdown: A study from South India

Abstract

Context: Nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19, has affected adversely on the mental health leading to emergence of new and relapse of old mental health disorders with increasing tendency towards suicide. Aims: Examining the impact of lockdown on mental health with objectives of understanding the patterns of mental health disorders and determinants of suicide attempts presenting to the Emergency Department.Settings and Design: Records of all cases reported to the Emergency Department observed retrospectively and described the incidence of mental health disorders in terms of their distribution across various sociodemographic variables along with patterns of suicide attempts using SPSS version 20.Results: Ninety-two cases with mental health disorders were studied in 55 days of Lockdown, of which 35% reported with suicide attempt. 16% of them had a diagnosis of ADS with Simple Withdrawal Symptoms followed by Adjustment disorder (15%). 21-40-year age group was most commonly observed with predominance of males (59%). Most common age group associated with the suicide attempt was 21-40 years (48%) with female (53%) prominence and students comprising 19%, poisoning (84%) being a common method with IPR issues (52%) as main reason.Conclusion: Sudden implementation of lockdown has impacted adversely on mental health with increase in frequency of stress related mental health disorders and also suicide attempts. More structured studies are needed to examine the impact of lockdown on mental health with appropriate comparator groups and correlating psychosocial factors predicting suicidal behavior, especially to study after effects of it.