Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment during the Covid-19 Pandemic. An international qualitative study.

Aims: Over the past years, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound psychological impact on the world population. Recent studies report that in the first months of the lockdown there was a slight decrease in requests for mandatory psychiatric treatment, while, in contrast, following the second wave, the cases increased. The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of compulsory psychiatric treatments in different national contexts in the first and subsequent phases of the Covid-19 pandemic. Method Nine key people were interviewed (October and December 2021) among mental health care professionals and scholars in four countries: Italy, Greece, China and Chile. People were asked to express their point of view through a narrative interview on their experience about the motivations, diagnoses and management of patients undergoing an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. Results Data analysis was conducted through Grounded Theory Methodology and highlighted four core themes: a) the culture of psychiatric care services, b) the effect of the pandemic on involuntary hospitalizations, c) exceptional management of hospitalization in order to reduce the spread of infection, d) policies and suggestions for more inclusive mental health treatments. Conclusion During the first wave of the pandemic (March-May 2020), respondents reported a general decrease in the use of involuntary treatments, while a gradual increase was found in the following months. Italy extended compulsory psychic treatment to a group of new users, such as young people and adolescents with acute crises, in other realities the main users are psychiatric patients with chronic psychopathologies.