Nicole Thompson, Canadian Press Posted Thursday, May 5, 2022, 5:53 AM EDT Last Updated on Thursday, May 5, 2022, 12:38 PM EDT
Canadian hospitals have jumped in the number of young people hospitalized for eating disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
Figures released on Thursday show that girls aged 10 to 17 with eating disorders were hospitalized nearly 60 percent more after the pandemic began.
The percentage for this cohort has increased from 52 hospitalizations per 100,000 people in 2019-20 to 82 hospitalizations per 100,000 in 2020-21.
He paints a clear portrait of one aspect of the mental health of young people across the country, experts say, noting that the eating disorder must be extremely severe in order to require hospitalization.
“This is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to young people with very serious eating disorders because there are so many barriers to accessing care,” said Dr. Liana Iserlin, psychiatric director of the Eating Disorders Program for Children and Adolescents in CHEO.
“And so many young people would never meet the criteria for hospitalization, but … they are still very bad with their eating disorders.”
The rate of hospitalizations with eating disorders for young people of all sexes aged five to 24 in Canada was 20 per 100,000 in 2020-21, compared to 15 per 100,000 in the two years leading up to the pandemic.
The data was extracted from the Ontario Abstract Discrimination Database and Mental Health Reporting System.
Iserlin said she saw a spike appear in her practice at the Ottawa-based children’s hospital.
“We had to redeploy our staff. “We had to recruit staff from other parts of the mental health programs that usually treated things like depression and anxiety or other mental disorders that came to help in our ward,” she said.
Tracy Johnson, director of health system analysis at CIHI, said it was difficult to measure the overall prevalence of eating disorders, so looking at hospitalization data is a good starting point for measuring trends.
“We know that advocates assume we don’t have enough resources for eating disorders, and that goes for everything from identifying children as early as possible and providing more appropriate care,” Johnson said.
However, there are limitations to the data.
“We don’t know who isn’t looking for these things,” Johnson said. “You’re in the hospital because you’re the sickest child.”
However, the increase in hospital visits and admissions for eating disorders has not been reflected in other mental health problems.
Hospitalizations for anxiety disorders decreased from 39 per 100,000 young people in 2019-2020 to 35 per 100,000 in 2020-2021, while for psychotic disorders the number remained relatively stable, going from 69 per 100,000 to 1.
Meanwhile, visits to emergency departments for substance-related disorders have declined.
The coefficient in 2019-2020 is 385 per 100,000 young people, and in 2020-2021 it is 280 per 100,000 young people.
“Alcohol overdose is declining,” Johnson said. “The children were at home, there were no parties and gatherings, no university parties. So all of these things contribute to a reduction in both hospital visits and emergency room visits. ”
The figures contradict the story that the pandemic was bad for all aspects of mental health, Johnson said.
“Triggers for some things are different.”
This Canadian Press report was first published on May 5, 2022.
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