Comparative Analysis of Prescriptions and Pharmacy Services in Internet-Based Psychiatric Hospital During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Observational Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated the development of internet-based hospitals and telepharmacy services. However, their characteristics and evolving trends remain unclear. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the associations between distinct pandemic phases and the number of prescriptions, patients' demographic characteristics, drug and disease distribution patterns, and pharmacy service indicators in our internet-based psychiatric hospital. METHODS: In this retrospective cross-sectional observational study, we conducted a full-sample census of prescriptions issued in the internet-based psychiatric hospital of the Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University during November 2020-December 2023. Cancelled, pending, and test prescriptions were excluded, and no sampling procedure was used. The research timespan was divided into pandemic and postpandemic phases, and trends of prescriptions were evaluated using interrupted time series analysis. Outcome measures, including patients' sex and age, diagnosed disease, drug type, pharmacist audit time, and audit outcome, were analyzed using the bootstrap method, Pearson chi-square analysis, and multinomial logistic regression. RESULTS: =2.77; P=.13). Descriptive analysis with bootstrap method revealed that female population were the majority in the pandemic phase (7297/11,812, 61.78%; 95% CI 60.91%-62.70%) and the postpandemic phase (3520/5518, 63.79%; 95% CI 62.58%-65.18%). Young adults aged 18-40 years were the predominant population in the pandemic phase (5606/11,812, 47.46%; 95% CI 46.63%-48.39%) and postpandemic phase (2657/5518, 48.15%; 95% CI 46.79%-49.37%). Depressive disorder and quetiapine were the most frequently diagnosed disease and prescribed drug in both pandemic phases, respectively. The majority of prescriptions were audited within 5 minutes during the pandemic phase (5999/11,812, 50.79%; 95% CI 49.89%-51.65%), while most prescriptions were audited within 1-12 hours in the postpandemic phase (2031/5518, 36.81%; 95% CI 35.61%-37.95%). Pearson chi-square analysis and multinomial logistic regression indicated that variables positively correlated with pandemic phases included female (P=.01; odds ratio [OR] 1.09, 95% CI 1.02-1.17), aged ≤17 years (P