More Americans seeking urgent mental health care due to pandemic

A growing number of Americans including children as young as 8 are seeking urgent mental health care in hospital emergency rooms nationwide due to the high stress of the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of emergency room visits by people who had overdosed or attempted suicide increased between mid-March and mid-October 2020 to 36 percent and 26 percent respectively, figures from the US Government Accountability Office showed in March.

Doctors reported that many patients who had been experiencing severe mental health issues during the pandemic had delayed seeking treatment or were not diagnosed.

"If someone is really suffering [it's important that they] reach out for help," Dr Michi Fu, a licensed psychologist in California and Hawaii, told China Daily.

The stress caused by the pandemic is not only being seen among adults, but in young children as well, figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.

In children age 12 to 17, emergency room visits for mental health crises went up 31 percent between 2019 and 2020, the CDC said.

And among children of the same age, emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts rose 22 percent last summer compared with 2019, and 39 percent in the winter of 2020 compared with 2019.

Children as young as 8 have felt so stressed by the pandemic that they have attempted suicide, according to The New York Times.

"Pandemic-related stress has had an enormous effect on children, who, because of their age, face unique challenges with coping," said Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD and CEO of the American Psychological Association (APA) in a statement.

In May, Children's Hospital Colorado, in Aurora, declared a state of emergency as its ER beds and inpatient beds were full of teens who had attempted suicide. Emergency department visits for behavioral issues were up by 90 percent in April 2021 over April 2019 and stayed high in May, according to The Associated Press.

Dr Garrett Sparks, assistant medical director of child and adolescent inpatient services at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has also seen a surge in patients visiting the ER for mental health care, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"It seems like everyone has been holding their breath for a year, and now, it's just a total explosion of everything, both in terms of high volume but also the severity of cases," Dr Sparks said. "You see a lot more people who were, pre-pandemic, kind of overwhelmed and stressed, and now they have full-on anxiety disorders or depression."

Bradley Klontz, an associate professor of financial psychology and behavioral finance at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, warns that months of forced social isolation will be detrimental to people's mental health.

"Being cooped up … brings up a whole host of mental health challenges in and of itself," Klontz told China Daily.

In New York, Dr Manish Sapra, executive director of behavioral health services at Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider, serving New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, said it had also seen an increase in the number of people in emergency rooms needing mental health services.

At least 1 in every 25 New Yorkers live with a serious mental illness, and 280,000 adults suffer from a depressive disorder or schizophrenia, according to the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health.

NYC Well, the city's 24/7 mental health hot line, said that since the start of the pandemic, it had received more than 300,000 calls and messages.

In a bid to help anyone struggling, the city has increased its "intensive mobile treatment teams" to help those with mental health worries.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said in April: "As we rebuild from the pandemic and drive a recovery for all of us, our mission to bring mental health care to every New Yorker has never been more urgent. For those who are dealing with the profound challenge of serious mental illness — you're not alone. Your city sees you, and we are here to help."

New York City officially reopened on July 1. It joined many other states that were attempting to return to a version of normalcy.

However, APA Chief of Psychology in the Public Interest Brian Smedley, PhD, sent a warning to members of the House Education and Labor Committee's Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions in April about the difficulties that lie ahead for the nation.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened what was already a mental health tsunami in this country," he said. "Research suggests we may be grappling with the mental health impact of this pandemic long after the pandemic itself ends."