In a recent pre-print from our team, we report findings from an outreach initiative at our psychiatric clinic. Our objectives were to evaluate the physical and mental well-being, subjective mental health, and need for updated psychiatric management plans in patients with severe mental illness during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients who had not been in touch with their outpatient clinic between April 9 and April 23, 2020 were contacted via telephone. From the abstract:
Main Outcomes and Measures: Self-rated physical, respiratory and psychiatric symptoms according to a semi-structured interview. Subjective mental health rated on a scale from 0-100.
Results: Patients (n = 1071) were on average 45 years old (SD = 16.9), of which 570 (53%) were female. Neurodevelopmental disorders, psychotic disorders, and bipolar disorder were the most common diagnostic categories. The majority of respondents reported no respiratory symptoms (86%), and few reported light (10%) or severe (4%) respiratory symptoms. Similarly, most patients reported no worsening in psychiatric symptoms (81%). For those who reported a worsening of psychiatric symptoms (19%), the psychiatric management plans that were already in place were deemed appropriate in most cases (16.5%), whereas 22 patients (2.5%) reported a worsening of psychiatric symptoms that warranted an earlier or immediate follow-up by their psychiatric clinic. Patients rated their subjective mental health on a 0-100 scale as 70.5 [95% CI 69 – 71.9] on average (n = 841). Response rates to the questions of the structured assessment varied from 79% – 82%.
Conclusions and Relevance: The majority of patients reported no respiratory symptoms, no change in psychiatric symptoms and a rather high subjective well-being. Patients in psychiatric care with a mental health care plan experienced stability in the management of their psychiatric symptoms and general well-being, and only a minority were in need of acute support during the early pandemic phase in Stockholm, Sweden.
You can read the pre-print in full here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.10.20229039v1
Rücklab - Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet 