US Outpatient Care for Serious Mental Health Issues Declined During COVID-19

A study today in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that while telemedicine helped some groups seeking mental health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans with serious mental health symptoms suffered from a decline in in-person outpatient mental health visits that has persisted. Moreover, this lack of outpatient care for those with significant mental illness was seen mostly in patients with lower incomes and education levels. The study was based on trends seen in participants in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component, given from 2018 to 2021 to 86,658 adults. Respondents were asked how frequently in the previous 30 days they had felt so sad that nothing could cheer them up, nervous, restless or fidgety, hopeless, that everything was an effort, or worthless (all, most, some, a little, or none of the time). Responses were scored from 0 to 4, with a score of 13 or higher defining serious psychological distress, the authors said.