Queen's University Belfast

Academic Institute

Dr Aideen Maguire

Queen's University BelfastHSCNI Research & Development Division

E060

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted greatly on day-to-day life affecting employment, work-life balance, friend and family interactions and health service delivery. It is predicted these changes, along with the threat of infection and effects of the virus itself, will have a major impact on population mental health. Increased isolation, unemployment and financial concerns are known to be associated with an increased risk of poor mental health. Couple that with anxiety, work adjustments, increased home schooling and changes to the delivery of health and mental services and the impact on the mental health of the Northern Ireland population could be catastrophic. This project aims to explore the impact of the pandemic and subsequent “lockdown” on mental health using administrative data. Uptake of psychotropic medications, presentations to Emergency Departments with self-harm or suicide ideation and admissions to psychiatric hospital will be used as proxy indicators of mental ill health. Expected trends for 2020 (based on the previous 3 years) will be compared to actual observed trends as the pandemic broke in Northern Ireland and lockdown began right through to medium and longer term outcomes. A range of demographic and socio-economic factors will be explored to determine if the effects of COVID-19 are felt more greatly amongst certain sub-groups of the population. Of special interest is the effect on those with pre-existing mental ill-health. Findings from this study will help quantify the mental health impact of the pandemic, identify those most at risk, aid in the generation targeted interventions and inform policy responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a major impact on population mental health. Quantifying this impact is of vital importance to inform service provision, planning and the targeting of health and social care interventions. Northern Ireland (NI) already has the highest rates of self-harm, suicide and poor self-rated mental health in the UK. When you factor in the potential impact of this pandemic it is imperative that robust, timely research is available to inform policy makers to allow for evidence informed policy making. This pandemic will potentially disrupt daily living until a vaccine is developed, and until then public health policy makers and health service providers need to know how to plan services and target interventions to those most in need. Reducing mental ill health and self-harm are at the core of the Protect Life 2 strategy and tackling the impact of COVID-19 has been described in the Mental Health Action Plan 2020 Annex “COVID-19 Mental Health Response Plan”.1,2 References 1. Department of Health. Protect Life 2: A draft strategy for suicide prevention in the north of Ireland. September 2016. 2. Department of Health Mental Health Action Plan May 2020 retrieved from https://www.healthni.

08/12/2020

Anonymous

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

One-off

TRE