Abstract Objectives This study aims to describe and compare the rate of self-harm visits to the emergency department (ED) among children and youth in Alberta, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Data from 2010 to 2022 were obtained from administrative databases held at Alberta Health Services, which capture all ED visits across Alberta. An interrupted time series was implemented using autoregressive moving average models. Results Findings indicate a step decrease in self-harm visits at pandemic onset (−2.94 patients per 10,000; P = 0.008). However, the rate of increase in self-harm visits remained consistent with the prepandemic rate of visits (slope change: 0.047 per 10,000, P = 0.24). There were also significant step changes found among males and females, several age subsets and among rural and urban subsets, but there were no significant slope changes among any subgroups. Conclusion Overall, findings indicate that the rate of self-harm visits following the onset of the pandemic did not differ from that which would be expected based on the upward trend in the 10 years before the pandemic, and this finding was consistent when stratifying by sex, age, and rurality. There was a significant reduction in self-harm visits at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Barry et al. (Sat,) studied this question.