Mental Health Services Data Dashboards for Reporting to Australian Governments during COVID-19
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Environment Scan
2.2. Data Sources
2.2.1. Crisis and Support Organizations and Online Mental Health Information Services
2.2.2. Medicare Benefits Schedule and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Data
2.2.3. Emerging Research
2.3. Data Access and Analysis
2.3.1. Data Access and Metric Selection
2.3.2. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Use of Medicare-Subsidised Mental Health-Related Services
- MBS mental health service usage showed a generally upward trend from early April 2020 to end of April 2021, with temporary dips observed during major holiday periods. Over 15.0 million MBS-subsidized mental health-related services were delivered between 16 March 2020 and 25 April 2021, with just under one third (29.5%) delivered by telehealth. The number of services delivered in the 4 weeks to 25 April 2021, was almost one fifth higher than the number of services provided in the same 4-week period in 2020 and 2019.
- Delivery of MBS subsidized mental health services via telehealth peaked in April 2020, when about half of these services were delivered remotely, corresponding with Australia’s national lockdown in April—May 2020 (Figure 1).
3.2. Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Prescriptions
- There was a spike in all mental health-related PBS-subsidized and under co-payment prescriptions in the 4 weeks to 29 March 2020 at the peak of Australia’s initial outbreak, an 18.6% increase in the number of prescriptions dispensed compared to the same period in 2019 (Figure 2).
3.3. Use of Crisis and Support Organisations and Online Mental Health Information Services
- Almost 82,000 calls were made to Lifeline, a similar volume (2.3% decrease) to April 2020 and an 18.4% increase from April 2019;
- Over 22,000 contacts were made with Beyond Blue, a 14.9% decrease and 30.7% increase from April 2020 and 2019, respectively;
- Approximately 26,000 contact attempts were made to Kids Helpline (not including those abandoned during the privacy message), a 26.6% decrease and 10.5% increase from April 2020 and 2019, respectively;
- Head to Health and ReachOut websites had an increase in visits at the start of the pandemic, with a peak in March 2020. ReachOut reported approximately 7600 daily website visits in April 2021, decreases of 34.5% and 13.2% compared to April 2020 and 2019, respectively. Head to Health reported about 1400 users per day in April 2021, a 74.7% decrease and 37.0% increase compared to the same periods in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
3.4. Jurisdictional Differences in Mental Health Service Activity
- The population rate of MBS mental health services was generally higher throughout the course of 2020 than during 2019, in both states, with the differential most evident in Victoria from the second half of 2020 onwards. This elevated rate is still evident in 2021. This pattern was likely influenced by the introduction of 10 additional subsidized psychology sessions under the Better Access initiative to people living under lockdown initially, which was then expanded to all Australians.
- The 4 weeks to 13 September 2020 in Victoria and the 4 weeks to 7 March 2020 in New South Wales were the periods with the highest number of MBS mental health-related services with about 360,000 services in each state.
- In New South Wales, there was an initial steep increase in telehealth services between March and April 2020, followed by a gradual decline, consistent with the pattern for the country overall. Victoria showed a double peak in telehealth service use, consistent with the second wave in winter 2020, and a small but sharp spike in February 2021 at the time of a smaller outbreak in Victoria (Figure 4).
- There have been some clear jurisdictional differences since the beginning of the pandemic in the rate of crisis and support organization contacts. In Victoria, calls to Beyond Blue showed a notable spike, commencing in July 2020, consistent with the onset of their second wave. The rate of call volumes to Lifeline, Kids Helpline and Beyond Blue all showed a greater difference between 2019 and 2020 in Victoria than in New South Wales. However, Lifeline and Kids Helpline both showed a notable ongoing higher level of call volume in NSW in 2020 than in 2019. Lifeline calls in NSW in the early part of 2021 were notably higher, possibly related to the northern beaches outbreak at that time.
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Shelly, S.; Lodge, E.; Heyman, C.; Summers, F.; Young, A.; Brew, J.; James, M. Mental Health Services Data Dashboards for Reporting to Australian Governments during COVID-19. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 10514. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910514
Shelly S, Lodge E, Heyman C, Summers F, Young A, Brew J, James M. Mental Health Services Data Dashboards for Reporting to Australian Governments during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(19):10514. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910514
Chicago/Turabian StyleShelly, Sonam, Emily Lodge, Carly Heyman, Felicity Summers, Amy Young, Jennifer Brew, and Matthew James. 2021. "Mental Health Services Data Dashboards for Reporting to Australian Governments during COVID-19" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 19: 10514. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910514