Prevalence of Anxiety Symptoms and Associated Clinical and Sociodemographic Factors in Mexican Adults Seeking Psychological Support for Grief During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Alejandro Dominguez-Rodriguez,Anabel De La Rosa-Gómez,María Jesús Hernández Jiménez,Flor Rocío Ramírez-Martínez,Luis Farfallini,Paulina Erika Herdoiza-Arroyo,Rosa Olimpia Castellanos Vargas,Eduardo Bautista Valerio,Esteban Eugenio Esquivel Santoveña,Joaquín Mateu Mollá,Carlos Armando Arzola-Sánchez,Paulina Arenas-Landgrave,Reyna Jazmin Martínez Arriaga,Sofía Cristina Martínez-Luna

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.749236

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the greatest challenges in modern history, with more than four million confirmed deaths worldwide. To date, evidence regarding the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on grievers is scarce for developing countries such as Mexico. This study aimed to assess the levels of anxiety and associated concerns in a sample of Mexican adults bereaved during the COVID-19 outbreak. A cross-sectional study was conducted through the Duelo COVID (COVID Grief) platform, which is a self-guided online treatment. A total of 5,224 participants reported their anxiety, depression, sleep quality, avoidance, and arousal, prolonged grief symptoms, and medication consumption. Independent sample Mann-Whitney U-tests, chi-square tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests, as well as multinomial logistic regression, were conducted. Results indicated that 90.4% of the participants reported clinical levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep affectations. The people who lost someone during the last 5 months scored higher in normal grief symptoms compared to the people whose loss was 6 months ago or more, and 9.8% of individuals reported the use of prescription medication, with anxiolytics and antidepressants being the most common. Females, younger respondents, unemployed people with a lower educational level, and participants who disclosed a recent suicide attempt were among those who reported medication consumption. Sleep problems were more frequent in older participants.

Highlights

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has wreaked major havoc on people’s mental health worldwide [1]
The results showed that 93.7% of participants exhibited significant anxiety symptoms, 95.2% had sleep problems, 86.6% presented symptoms of depression, and 67.7% showed potentially problematic grief symptoms
The results showed that being younger was associated with greater symptomatology in anxiety, depression, grief, avoidance, and arousal

Summary

Introduction

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has wreaked major havoc on people’s mental health worldwide [1]. Recent findings showed a significant increase in clinical disorders like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and insomnia [2]. Shah et al [3] reported that 50.9% of their adult sample suffered from anxiety, 57.4% from stress, and 58.6% from depression. Wang et al [4] systematically reviewed 68 studies comprising 288,830 participants from 19 countries and found that 33% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression. Xiong et al [5] conducted a systematic review in which they observed that the prevalence of anxiety symptoms ranged from 6.33 to 50.9%, and was often comorbid with depression at rates from 14.6 to 48.3%. Medina-Mora et al [6] reported that in 2018, among 5,826 Mexican adults, the rate of anxiety disorder was 14.3%, followed by mood disorders at 9.2%

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