Loading...
Many people believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a worldwide “pandemic” of mental health distress. But much of the evidence for this belief comes from reviews of cross-sectional studies that employed common screening tests, often without comparison to pre-COVID data. In a meta-analysis, researchers reviewed 137 studies that used validated measures (symptom questionnaires or diagnostic interviews) of general mental health, depressive symptoms, or anxiety symptoms and included data from both 2018 or 2019 and after January 2020 in the same patient cohorts. Almost all studies were from high-income or upper-middle-income countries.
For the general population, depression symptoms worsened minimally during the pandemic (standardized mean d…