Changes in the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the pandemic: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.

Journal: BMJ mental health

Volume: 27

Issue: 1

Year of Publication: 2024

Affiliated Institutions:  Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland georgia.salanti@unibe.ch. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, University College London, London, UK. Women's College Hospital and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Orygen and Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Department of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Department of Ophthalmology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, USA. Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Amsterdam Public Health research institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Office of Institutional Advancement and Communications, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

Abstract summary 

To describe the pattern of the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the impact of containment measures on these trends.We identified articles published until 30 August 2021 that reported the prevalence of mental health problems in the general population at two or more time points. A crowd of 114 reviewers extracted data on prevalence, study and participant characteristics. We collected information on the number of days since the first SARS-CoV-2 infection in the study country, the stringency of containment measures and the number of cases and deaths. We synthesised changes in prevalence during the pandemic using a random-effects model. We used dose-response meta-analysis to evaluate the trajectory of the changes in mental health problems.We included 41 studies for 7 mental health conditions. The average odds of symptoms increased during the pandemic (mean OR ranging from 1.23 to 2.08). Heterogeneity was very large and could not be explained by differences in participants or study characteristics. Average odds of psychological distress, depression and anxiety increased during the first 2 months of the pandemic, with increased stringency of the measures, reported infections and deaths. The confidence in the evidence was low to very low.We observed an initial increase in the average risk of psychological distress, depression-related and anxiety-related problems during the first 2 months of the pandemic. However, large heterogeneity suggests that different populations had different responses to the challenges imposed by the pandemic.

Authors & Co-authors:  Salanti Georgia G Peter Natalie Luise NL Tonia Thomy T Holloway Alexander A Darwish Leila L Kessler Ronald C RC White Ian I Vigod Simone N SN Egger Matthias M Haas Andreas D AD Fazel Seena S Herrman Helen H Kieling Christian C Patel Vikram V Li Tianjing T Cuijpers Pim P Cipriani Andrea A Furukawa Toshi A TA Leucht Stefan S

Study Outcome 

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Statistics
Citations :  Patel V, Saxena S, Lund C, et al. . The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development. The Lancet 2018;392:1553–98. 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31612-X
Authors :  20
Identifiers
Doi : e301018
SSN : 2755-9734
Study Population
Male,Female
Mesh Terms
Humans
Other Terms
COVID-19;Data Interpretation, Statistical;Depression
Study Design
Study Approach
Systemic Review
Country of Study
Publication Country
England