The number of children presenting to Emergency Departments (EDs) with mental health problems increased during the first year of the pandemic, a new study has found.

This is despite the fact that overall attendance by children to EDs fell during this period.

Researchers in Dublin and Limerick set out to assess changes in mental health attendance at three public paediatric EDs in the Dublin area. They focused on children aged between five and 15 years.

Mental health presentations during the year ending February 28, 2021, were compared with the year before.

The study found that overall, ED attendance during the first year of the pandemic was 34% lower than the previous year, yet despite this, mental health presentations were 9% higher than the previous year.

Paediatric mental health presentations did fall during the most restrictive stages of public health measures, and the researchers acknowledged that spending more time with their families, and not having to attend school in person, may have benefitted some children.

However, as restrictions started to ease and the prevalence of Covid-19 remained low, “mental health presentations at EDs increased, with attendance for each month from June to December above the prior year, while ED presentations for other reasons remained lower than prior years”.

“This subsequent increase may suggest unmet need during the initial lockdown, with fear of contracting Covid-19 in a hospital setting, and concerns about the health service being overwhelmed, leading to delayed access,” the researchers suggested.

They said that the findings “support the concern that the pandemic has adversely impacted mental health”, and noted that it has caused “severe disruption” to mental health services aimed at children and adolescents worldwide.

In Ireland, such services were already considered massively under-resourced even before the pandemic. The study concluded that urgent resourcing of these services, and consideration for out-of-hours access, must be included in the response to Covid-19.

“The impact of the Covid-19 imposed restrictions on youth needs to be carefully assessed, least the cure is worse than the cause,” the study stated.

Details of these findings are published in the Irish Medical Journal.