Current Status of Countermeasures Against Novel Coronavirus Infections in Psychiatric Hospitals in Osaka Prefecture in 2020

Abstract

As of September 10, 2020, outbreaks of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) clusters had been announced in 10 single-department psychiatric hospitals in Japan. To clarify the status of infection control measures in single-department psychiatric hospitals as of July 2020, we conducted a questionnaire survey of four items: source control, route control, host control, and COVID-19-specific infection prevention measures, limited to single-department psychiatric hospitals in Osaka Prefecture. As a result, 70% of the facilities answered “Yes” to the questionnaire, meaning that they were taking sufficient measures to prevent infection. In the case of infection control, 62% of the respondents answered “Yes”, but only a request was made to restrict the behavior of staff. In 6 of the 10 facilities where clusters occurred, the first patient with COVID-19 was a medical staff member. This survey suggested that behavioral restrictions on health care workers in psychiatric hospitals, in addition to behavioral and visitation restrictions on patients, are important measures for preventing clusters.