Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Corso di laurea in infermieristica - Sede di Modena
| Thesis Title | Urgent psychiatric consultations recorded in the emergency department of Modena general hospitals over one year in conjunction with the COVID-19 pande |
|---|---|
| Name | Panico Sofia |
| Supervisor(s) | Di Lorenzo Rosaria, Dragone Diego, Farina Riccardo, Pinelli Margherita |
| Academic Year | |
| Thesis type | Research thesis |
Abstract
Introduction: The SARS-COV-2 pandemic caused a public health emergency with profound consequences on the physical and mental health of individuals. Emergency rooms played a key role in the management of psychiatric emergencies; nurses were the professionals who first provided the necessary care and treatment. Objectives: Analysis of urgent psychiatric consultations in the emergency rooms of the hospitals of Modena and the clinical and demographic data of patients during the pandemic period, taking as a reference point the beginning of the emergency block that occurred in March 2020 and studying the qualitative and quantitative differences with the previous period. Materials and Methods: A single-center observational study was performed with data collected in a database in the form of an alpha-numeric code. A sample of 2103 patients, all of whom were 18 years of age, who underwent one or more psychiatric consultations at the PS of the OCSAE of Baggiovara and the Policlinico of Modena during a 1-year observation period, from 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020 and from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2021, was considered. Results: We observed a decrease in urgent psychiatric consultations in the post-lockdown period compared with the pre-lockdown period. There was an increase in diagnoses of heterodirected aggression and socio-environmental emergency, a prevalence of patients from psychiatric facilities, and economically unstable patients such as retirees and unemployed. Conclusions: This overall picture highlights how clinically and/or socially vulnerable the population most at risk in this setting is and on how flexible emergency services and health care providers have been in organizing care.