Researchers have discovered that anxiety and depression cases around the globe increased significantly in 2020. There were an estimated 76m more cases of anxiety and 53m more cases of major depressive disorders if Covid hadn't intervened.
This latest study suggests that the pandemic is having a severe impact on mental health. It also shows that young and female people are more susceptible to being affected than older and male people.
According to Dr Damian Santomauro, University of Queensland's lead author, "We believe that" is because women are more susceptible to being affected by the economic and social consequences of the pandemic," he said.
Due to family illness or school closings, women are more likely than men to assume additional household and caretaker responsibilities. He said that women are also more likely to have lower salaries and have less savings than men. This makes them more vulnerable to financial hardship during the pandemic.
A series of challenges have been presented to young people.
Santomauro said that youth have been affected by closures of schools and higher education institutions, as well as wider restrictions that prevent young people from engaging in peer interaction. He also stated that young people are more likely to be unemployed following an economic crisis.
The international research team reported in Lancet that they used 48 studies published between January 2020 and January 29, 2021, which included data from surveys on anxiety and depression in different countries before and after the Covid pandemic.
The team looked at how changes in prevalence could be linked to indicators of the impact of Covid pandemics such as daily infection rate and human mobility.
The team then used the information to build a model that allowed them extrapolate the increase in mental health disorders between before and during the pandemic. This included extrapolating the changes by age, gender, and location. It also covered countries that did not have mental health survey data during the pandemic. However, the team warns that these estimates should not be taken lightly.
These shifts are combined with country-specific estimates from another model of pre-pandemic levels major depressive disorder or anxiety disorders in each country. The team estimates that there were 246m major depressive disorders and 374m anxiety disorders globally in 2020. This is 28% and 26% respectively, respectively, than was expected if the crisis hadn't occurred.
Two-thirds of these additional cases of major depression disorder and 68% were in women. Younger people were more affected than older adults. People aged 20-24 were most at risk.
The team estimated that the areas most affected by the pandemic in 2020 were those with the highest prevalence of major depression disorder and anxiety disorders. This was based on decreased human mobility and daily SarsCoV-2 infection rates. These regions include parts of the Middle East and western Europe.
Santomauro stated that the pandemic has imposed a significant burden on mental health systems already struggling to cope.
He said that we need to seriously reevaluate our approach to mental health care. I hope that our results will provide some guidance for those who need to decide what should be prioritized and which populations are most affected.
