Factors Associated with Leaving Ambulatory Psychiatric Treatment in a Large, Academic Health System During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

Detailed evaluation of changes in patient retention in psychiatric care as a result of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have not been studied. Here, we present a retrospective analysis of aggregate data from a large academic health system (n = 16,701 patients) to examine if there were differences in patients leaving psychiatric care from the pre-COVID-19 period to the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Demographic, clinical, and behavioral factors were studied using logistic regressions to determine significant associations in leaving psychiatric care during COVID-19 and in the 12 months immediately prior to the pandemic. Factors identified with a higher odds of leaving psychiatric care during COVID-19 that were not associated with leaving care prior to COVID-19 included demographic (male sex, uninsured (self-pay) status), behavioral (inactive patient health portal), and diagnostic (anxiety and trauma stressor disorders, pervasive and specific developmental disorders, and disorders of childhood) factors. These results highlight that the reasons patients left care during the period immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic may have been multifactorial in nature, although certain patterns seem to have appeared. Further study is needed to elucidate why these specific factors may have driven patients to leave psychiatric treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.