News Scan for Jan 24, 2022

Study: Mental health visits increased for physicians during pandemicA new Canadian study shows visits for mental health and substance abuse problems by physicians increased 27% during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study is published in JAMA Network Open.The study was based on mental health and substance use outpatient records of 34,055 practicing physicians in Ontario, Canada.

The number of visits per 1,000 physicians increased by 27% during the first year of the pandemic, and the absolute proportion of physicians with one or more mental health and substance use visits increased to 13.4% during the first year of the pandemic, compared with 12.3% in the prior year.The relative increase was significantly greater in physicians without a mental health and substance use history (adjusted incident rate ratio, 1.72; 95% confidence interval, 1.60 to 1.85) than in physicians with a mental health and substance use history, the authors wrote.Outpatient visits for mental health concerns rose significantly in the first 5 months pf the pandemic, 28.3% of all visits, and dropped to 27% during the next 7 months.Men and women physicians, physicians in urban and rural settings, and physicians of all ages all saw similar increases in visits.

Interestingly, there was no significant differences in mental health needs between physicians seeing COVID-19 patients directly in the emergency room or hospital, and those who did not."We did notice that this group of physicians, which included individuals in critical care, emergency medicine and internal medicine, already had lower rates of mental health visits pre-pandemic," said co-senior author Manish Sood, MD, in an Ottawa Hospital news release. "This could mean they have greater