Table 3.

Eating disorder service use counts, rates, and characteristics at Waikato DHB

	Pre-COVID-19	COVID-19	p	2019	2020	p
Inpatient admissions (n)
Total	52	54		37	69
< 18 years	17	12		13	16
Inpatient admission rates per month (mean (95% CI))
Total	3.5 (3.0–3.9)	6.0 (5.4–6.6)	0.01	3.1 (2.7–3.5)	5.8 (5.3–6.3)	0.002
< 18 years	1.1 (0.6–1.6)	1.3 (0.5–2.1)	0.73	1.1 (0.6 -1.6)	1.3 (0.6 -2.0)	0.62
> 18 years	2.3 (1.8–2.8)	4.7 (4.2–5.2)	0.005	2.0 (1.2–2.8)	4.4 (4.0–4.8)	0.001
‘First-ever’ inpatient admissions (n (%))
Total	12 (23%)	24 (44%)	0.02	9 (24%)	27 (39%)	0.12
< 18 years	7 (41%)	10 (83%)	0.02	6 (46%)	11 (69%)	0.22
> 18 years	5 (14%)	14 (33%)	0.03	3 (13%)	16 (30%)	0.095
Outpatient referrals (n)
< 18 years	29	28		25	32
> 18 years	48	25		38	35
Referral rates per month (mean (95% CI))
< 18 years	1.9 (1.4–2.5)	3.1 (2.6 -3.6)	0.076	2.1 (1.5–2.7)	2.7 (2.1–3.2)	0.38
> 18 years	3.2 (2.7–3.7)	2.8 (2.0–3.6)	0.59	3.2 (2.6–3.8)	2.9 (2.3–3.5)	0.73
Referral acuity child and adolescent service (n (%))
Low	19 (66%)	11 (39%)		18 (72%)	12 (38%)
Medium	6 (21%)	8 (29%)		4 (16%)	10 (31%)
High	4 (14%)	9 (32%)	0.047*	3 (12%)	10 (31%)	0.009*
Referral acuity adult service (n (%))
Low	22 (46%)	14 (56%)		18 (47%)	18 (51%)
Medium	11 (23%)	3 (12%)		10 (26%)	4 (11%)
High	15 (31%)	8 (32%)	0.41*	10 (26%)	13 (37%)	0.73*

*Medium and high acuity counts were combined for a two-variable chi-square test