Abstract
We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and panic disorder (PD) among citizens in 11 countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. We explored risks and protective factors most associated with the development of these mental health disorders and their course at 68 days follow up. We acquired 9543 unique responses via an online survey that was disseminated in UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, India, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. The prevalence and new incidence during the pandemic for at least one disorder was 48.6% and 17.6%, with the new incidence of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorder being 11.4%, 8.4%, 9.3%, and 3%, respectively. Higher resilience was associated with lower mental health burden for all disorders. Ten to thirteen associated factors explained 79% of the variance in PTSD, 80% in anxiety, 78% in depression, and 89% in PD. To reduce the mental health burden, governments should refrain from implementing many highly restrictive and lasting containment measures. Public health campaigns should focus their effort on alleviating stress and fear, promoting resilience, building public trust in government and medical care, and persuading the population of the measures’ effectiveness. Psychosocial services and resources should be allocated to facilitate individual and community-level recovery from the pandemic.
Highlights
We found that having a preexisting mental disorder increases the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during a pandemic 1.73 times (CI 95%: 1.47–2.04)
Average prevalence of PTSD, anxdepression, and and panic disorder iety, depression, panic disorder
Resources ought to be made available to facilitate this in order to avoid a later higher mental illness burden for the population. To preserve their mental health, people should limit the time following the news related to Covid-19 on TV, radio, newspapers or social media because we found that each additional hour spent increases the probability of getting PTSD, anxiety, or depression
Summary
The United Nations has described the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic as humanity’s worst crisis since World War II [1]. Since its emergence in Asia in 2019, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, pandemics are classified as a natural disaster [2]. Natural disasters often have short- and long-term psychological impacts that far exceed the degree of medical morbidity and mortality that ensues [3]. The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have traumatizing effects on at least parts of the population. Assessing the psychological impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and associated factors is fundamental to inform and tailor the responses of governments and their partner organizations to recover from the crisis
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