New data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) demonstrates an increase in the rate of young people hospitalized for eating disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data from CIHI’s Discharge Abstract Database and the Ontario Mental Health Reporting System indicate that this rate was 15 per 100,000 in the two years prior to the onset of the pandemic and that it increased to 20 per 100,000 in 2020-2021.
Girls aged 10 to 17 with eating disorders were hospitalized almost 60% more after the start of the pandemic. Among this clientele, the rate fell from 52 hospitalizations per 100,000 inhabitants in 2019-2020 to 82 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020-21.
Dr. Leanna Isserlin, psychiatric director of the Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders Program at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa, says the number of hospitalizations is not is just the tip of the iceberg, because there are a large number of patients who do not have access to care.
Dr. Isserlin reports that she has seen the spike materialize in her practice over the past two years.
She adds that staff travel was necessary, including people assigned to mental health care programs that typically treated depression, anxiety or other psychiatric conditions.
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