Summary

Since the start of the health crisis, compared to the previous two years

In emergency departments: there has been a sharp decline in emergency department visits for suicide attempts, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders since the start of the first lockdown. These decreases are observed across all age groups. However, among children, the decrease in visits for mood disorders is less pronounced than that observed among adults. Conversely, visits for suicidal behavior and anxiety disorders decreased more markedly among children. This decrease compared to previous years continued throughout the lockdown period and beyond (through weeks 22–23 of 2020). Levels then returned to normal values for most indicators and age groups. However, the following points are worth noting:

• A low level of suicidal acts compared to 2018/2019 among adults aged 15–64;

• A slightly higher rate of emergency department visits for anxiety and mood disorders among people aged 65 and older, starting in week 23 of 2020 compared to 2018/2019. These two indicators have returned to normal levels since early September;

• An increase in emergency room visits for mood disorders among children under 15, with the number of visits since early September 2020 significantly higher than in previous years.

In SOS Médecins associations: since the start of the first lockdown, there has been a sharp increase in medical procedures for anxiety among adults over 15 years of age. The levels observed, which were significantly higher than in previous years, gradually decreased, returning to levels comparable to previous years by week 31. However, for adults and, to a lesser extent, for children (small sample size), a new increase in medical procedures for anxiety has been observed since mid-September 2020, which appears to be continuing into early 2021.

Medical procedures for depressive disorders, in contrast to those for anxiety, declined sharply from the start of the first lockdown among adults aged 15 and older. They then gradually rose, reaching a level higher than in previous years by the end of the first lockdown and through September, particularly among those aged 65 and older.

Medical procedures for behavioral disorders have remained at usual levels since the start of the first lockdown. However, there has been an increase in these procedures among people aged 65 and older since the last week of November (Week 48, 2020).

Focus on the recent period

Over the past two weeks (Weeks 3 and 4 of 2021), in emergency departments, across all age groups, visits for suicide attempts, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders have been at levels comparable to or even lower than those of the past two years. Notably, among children under 15, visits for mood disorders have remained at a level 2 to 3 times higher than in previous years, along with a slight increase in visits for suicide attempts in weeks 3 and 4, with week 4 seeing a higher number of visits than in the previous two years (149 in 2021 vs. 130 in 2020 and 123 in 2019).

Within the SOS Médecins network, medical consultations for anxiety and depressive states have remained stable over the past few weeks but remain at a higher level than those observed in the last two years. These increases are more pronounced among people aged 65 and older. Treatments for behavioral disorders are within the usual fluctuation ranges, except among people aged 65 and older, among whom—as with anxiety and depressive states—a level higher than that of the past two years has also been observed in recent weeks.