Publication date: Jun 01, 2024

Psychiatric day care is a key framework for outpatient rehabilitation in Japanese psychiatric treatment. It targets a wide range of diseases and performs various roles. The current status and utilization of psychiatric day care in Japan have changed owing to an increase in the availability of other social resources and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, no reports have quantitatively analyzed the trends or current situation of psychiatric day care in Japan. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the status of the operation of psychiatric day care in Japan and its trends by sex, region, and age group. Based on the publicly available data from the Japanese National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups (NDB Open Data), we investigated changes in the numbers related to psychiatric day care nationwide from fiscal year (FY) 2017-2021. Furthermore, we calculated the numbers of psychiatric day care facilities use per 1,000 people by prefecture, sex, and age group in 2021. A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to compare the total number of psychiatric day care facilities used in months during periods of emergency declarations and priority preventative measures with those used in months when there were no such periods. Pearson’s correlation coefficient test was conducted to examine the correlation between the numbers of psychiatric beds per 100,000 people and the annual numbers of psychiatric day care facilities use per 1,000 people in each prefecture. A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to compare the number per 1,000 people per year of prefectures with or without capital- and government-designated cities and compare the annual total number (FY 2017-2021) by sex. Overall, the number of psychiatric day care facilities use tended to decrease. The monthly data showed a significant decrease in the total number of psychiatric day care facilities’ usage during periods of emergency declarations and priority preventative measures (p=0. 02). The numbers of “psychiatric short care” use increased in 2021 and those of psychiatric day-night care (>3 years / >3 days per week) use showed an increasing trend from 2020. The overall number of psychiatric day care facilities’ usage per 1,000 people by prefecture was significantly lower in prefectures having cities with populations of 700,000 or more (p

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