of the pediatric IBD population had at least 1 mental health concern over this time period, and the most common psychiatric diagnoses were depression alone (67%), anxiety alone (3%), or both depression and anxiety (30%). About 36% of patients were prescribed a psychotropic medication and hydroxyzine (53%), sertraline (33%), and fluoxetine (25%) were the most prescribed therapeutics. 24% of patients utilized some form of mental health service but 49% of patients taking psychotropic medications did not appear to receive any formal mental health services. Patients who developed a psychiatric disorder reported more IBD-related symptoms at the time of their diagnosis compared to those without any history of psychiatric diagnoses (t(136)51.99, P5.02). Conclusion(s): Our results suggest there are high levels of depression and/or anxiety in children with IBD seen at URMC during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, increased IBD symptoms at the time of diagnosis were associated with increased rates of psychopathology. Taken together, these findings suggest that more anxiety and depression screening is needed for pediatric IBD patients and that mental health services may be underutilized in the pediatric IBD population. Future directions include combining and comparing this data set with a previous pre-pandemic study performed at our institution to determine the full impact of COVID-19 on this population.
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