TY - JOUR T1 - How psychiatrists coordinate treatment for COVID-19: a retrospective study and experience from China JF - General Psychiatry JO - Gen Psych DO - 10.1136/gpsych-2020-100272 VL - 33 IS - 4 SP - e100272 AU - Ling Yue AU - Jingyi Wang AU - Mingliang Ju AU - Yi Zhu AU - Lianghu Chen AU - Lin Shi AU - Bohai Shi AU - Jun Chen AU - Yifeng Shen Y1 - 2020/08/01 UR - http://gpsych.bmj.com/content/33/4/e100272.abstract N2 - Background Patients with COVID-19 are at high risk of developing mental health problems; however, the prevalence and management of mental disorders and how psychiatrists coordinate the treatment are unclear.Aims We aimed to investigate the mental health problems of patients infected with COVID-19 and to identify the role of psychiatrists in the clinical treatment team during the pandemic. We also share the experience of psychiatric consultations of patients with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China.Methods We analysed data from the psychiatric medical records of 329 patients with COVID-19 in the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center from 20 January to 8 March 2020. We collected information including sociodemographic characteristics, whether patients received psychiatric consultation, mental health symptoms, psychiatric diagnoses, psychiatric treatments and severity level of COVID-19.Results Psychiatric consultations were received by 84 (25.5%) patients with COVID-19. The most common symptoms of mental health problems were sleep disorders (75%), anxiety (58.3%) and depressive symptoms (11.9%). The psychiatric consultation rate was highest in critically ill patients (69.2%), with affective symptoms or disturbed behaviour as their main mental health problems. Psychiatric diagnoses for patients who received consultation included acute stress reaction (39.3%), sleep disorders (33.3%), anxiety (15.5%), depression (7.1%) and delirium (4.8%). In terms of psychiatric treatments, 86.9% of patients who received psychiatric consultation were treated with psychotropic medications, including non-benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotic agents (54.8%), antidepressants (26.2%), benzodiazepines (22.6%) and antipsychotics (10.7%). Among the 76 patients who were discharged from the hospital, 79% had recovered from mental health problems and were not prescribed any psychotropic medications. The symptoms of the remaining 21% of patients had improved and they were prescribed medications to continue the treatment.Conclusions This is the first study to report psychiatric consultations for patients with COVID-19. Our study indicated that a considerable proportion of patients with COVID-19, especially critically ill cases, experienced mental health problems. Given the remarkable effect of psychiatric treatments, we recommend that psychiatrists be timely and actively involved in the treatment of COVID-19. ER -