BMJ Mental Health (May 2024)
Changes in the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the pandemic: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
- Toshi A Furukawa,
- Edoardo G Ostinelli,
- Andrea Cipriani,
- Pim Cuijpers,
- Lin Ma,
- Akira Onishi,
- Tianjing Li,
- Georgia Salanti,
- Vikram Patel,
- Christian Kieling,
- Sanae Kishimoto,
- Ronald C Kessler,
- Seena Fazel,
- Marialena Trivella,
- Akira Sato,
- Yikang Zhu,
- Raman Sharma,
- Matthias Egger,
- Simone N. Vigod,
- Yu-Kang Tu,
- Tou-Yuan Tsai,
- Yuan-Pang Wang,
- Irene Bighelli,
- Alessandro Rodolico,
- Stefan Leucht,
- Michael Ostacher,
- Ian White,
- Virginia Chiocchia,
- Ethan Sahker,
- Rie Toyomoto,
- Kazufumi Yoshida,
- Trevor Thompson,
- Dongfang Wang,
- Jing Tian,
- Katharine A Smith,
- Gonzalo Arrondo,
- Meenakshi Sharma,
- Silviya Ralovska,
- Andreas D Haas,
- Michael A Wewege,
- Bartosz Helfer,
- Erika Kalocsanyiova,
- Harrison Nelson,
- Gandy Dolores-Maldonado,
- Caroline Zangani,
- Kenji Omae,
- Shimeng Dong,
- Shino Kikuchi,
- Thomy Tonia,
- James S W Hong,
- Natalie Luise Peter,
- Letao Sun,
- Aurélie M Lasserre,
- Alexander Holloway,
- Leila Darwish,
- Andrea Zucchetti,
- Amin Sharifan,
- Ana Cristina Solis,
- Antonio Vita,
- Carmen Concerto,
- Chinonso Igwesi-Chidobe,
- Carlos Rios-Gonzalez,
- Anna Ceraso,
- Daniel Prates Baldez,
- Dicle Dilay Demir,
- Ying-Chun Lin,
- Elena Invernizzi,
- Gabriel Henrique Beraldi,
- Gamze Erzin,
- Giulia Ottaviano,
- Graciela J Balbin-Ramón,
- Chin-Yen Ho,
- Helio Elkis,
- Yun Chen Liu,
- Javier Ballesteros,
- Johanna Schneckenburger,
- Jessie Jingxia Lin,
- Abdulkadir Usman Sambo,
- Lena Feber,
- Mattia Marchetti,
- Mauro Italia,
- Mengchang Qin,
- Yi-Chih Lin,
- Nurul Husna Salahuddin,
- Rossella Virgillito,
- Ogulcan Ciray,
- Sergio A Covarrubias-Castillo,
- Yun Hsia,
- Shiue-Shiuan Tu,
- Vidya Giri Shankar
Affiliations
- Toshi A Furukawa
- 4 Department of Health Promotion and Human Behaviour, School of Public Health in the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Edoardo G Ostinelli
- Andrea Cipriani
- 10 Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Pim Cuijpers
- 13 Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Amsterdam Public Health research institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Lin Ma
- Department of Neurosurgery, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, People`s Republic of China
- Akira Onishi
- Department of Advanced Medicine for Rheumatic diseases, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Tianjing Li
- associate professor
- Georgia Salanti
- 13 Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine and Clinical Trials, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Vikram Patel
- 11 Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Christian Kieling
- 9 Department of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
- Sanae Kishimoto
- Ronald C Kessler
- 3 Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Seena Fazel
- 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Marialena Trivella
- Akira Sato
- Yikang Zhu
- Raman Sharma
- Matthias Egger
- 1 Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Simone N. Vigod
- 5 Women’s College Hospital and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Yu-Kang Tu
- Tou-Yuan Tsai
- Yuan-Pang Wang
- Irene Bighelli
- Alessandro Rodolico
- Stefan Leucht
- 1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
- Michael Ostacher
- Ian White
- 4 MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, University College London, London, UK
- Virginia Chiocchia
- statistician
- Ethan Sahker
- 1 Department of Health Promotion and Human Behavior, Graduate School of Medicine / School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Rie Toyomoto
- Kazufumi Yoshida
- Trevor Thompson
- 8 Cente for Chronic Illness and Ageing, University of Greenwich, London, UK
- Dongfang Wang
- Jing Tian
- Katharine A Smith
- Gonzalo Arrondo
- Meenakshi Sharma
- Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India
- Silviya Ralovska
- Andreas D Haas
- 1 Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Michael A Wewege
- Bartosz Helfer
- Erika Kalocsanyiova
- Harrison Nelson
- Gandy Dolores-Maldonado
- Caroline Zangani
- Kenji Omae
- Shimeng Dong
- Shino Kikuchi
- Thomy Tonia
- 1 Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- James S W Hong
- Natalie Luise Peter
- 2 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Letao Sun
- Aurélie M Lasserre
- Alexander Holloway
- 1 Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Leila Darwish
- 2 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Andrea Zucchetti
- Amin Sharifan
- Ana Cristina Solis
- Antonio Vita
- Carmen Concerto
- Chinonso Igwesi-Chidobe
- Carlos Rios-Gonzalez
- Anna Ceraso
- Daniel Prates Baldez
- Dicle Dilay Demir
- Ying-Chun Lin
- Elena Invernizzi
- Gabriel Henrique Beraldi
- Gamze Erzin
- Giulia Ottaviano
- Graciela J Balbin-Ramón
- Chin-Yen Ho
- Helio Elkis
- Yun Chen Liu
- Javier Ballesteros
- Johanna Schneckenburger
- Jessie Jingxia Lin
- Abdulkadir Usman Sambo
- Lena Feber
- Mattia Marchetti
- Mauro Italia
- Mengchang Qin
- Yi-Chih Lin
- Nurul Husna Salahuddin
- Rossella Virgillito
- Ogulcan Ciray
- Sergio A Covarrubias-Castillo
- Yun Hsia
- Shiue-Shiuan Tu
- Vidya Giri Shankar
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2024-301018
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 27,
no. 1
Abstract
Aim 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.Methods 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.Results 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.Conclusions 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.
