Access to tertiary mental health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania

ABSTRACT

The entire environment to provide mental health care was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including tertiary health care services. This nationwide population-based observational descriptive study aims to explore the access to tertiary mental health care services in Romania, during the year 2020 compared with the last two years before. The analysis of national patterns of hospital admission due to mental health diseases and for the main causes of morbidity has shown disruption of regular services delivery morbidity during Covid-19 pandemic year, the rate of admission for continuous hospitalization registered in Romania due to mental and behavioural disorders in the year 2020 decreased to approximately 55% of the value of the registered rate for 2019 or 2018. During 2020, a change in hospital admission patterns for other diseases, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive diseases, and neoplasms has been observed in Romania.