Abstract
Online mental health service (OMHS) platforms have contributed significantly to the public’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. However, it remains unclear why the public used OMHS platforms for psychological help-seeking (PHS) behavior and how PHS behavior varied across different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the ecological PHS behavior data from two OMHS platforms, we extracted population, psychological problems, and influential factors of PHS behavior by text mining and time series analysis methods. Seven top-ranked psychological problems (i.e., depression and anxiety, lack of interest, suicidal tendencies, social phobia, feelings of being worried and afraid, suffering, anger) and seven influential factors (i.e., interpersonal relationships, love, family, work, psychotherapy, personal characteristics, marriage) were found. The online PHS behaviors related to different psychological problems and influential factors remained a growing trend before 2020 and have been increasing significantly due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Four main stages were found during the pandemic according to the changes in the online PHS population: sharp growth, significant decline, slight rebound, and slow decline. This study identified large-scale, spontaneous PHS behaviors among the online public during the COVID-19 pandemic and the various psychological problems and influential factors that varied across different stages of the pandemic, suggesting that the government and health practitioners should adopt effective policies and strategies to prevent and intervene in mental health problems for the online public.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 195 million cases and4.18 million deaths worldwide to date [1]
Besides the known psychological problems and influential factors, the present study revealed a broader and indirect association between the COVID-19 pandemic and online psychological help-seeking behaviors and found that suffering, social phobia, lack of interest, and suicidal tendencies were the main psychological problems faced by online psychological help-seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and love, marriage, psychotherapy, personal characteristics, and family were the influential factors of these problems
Considering the temporal patterns of online psychological help-seeking behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is worthy to mention the following findings: First of all, the present study found that online PHS behavior related to different psychological problems and influential factors continued in an early growth trend and increased with the COVID-19 outbreak
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 195 million cases and. 4.18 million deaths worldwide to date [1]. The Chinese government has implemented sustainable prevention and control measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is current well controlled in China, confirmed infected cases have been emerging sporadically. The pandemic has impaired physical health but has resulted in short-term or long-term psychological problems, especially for people with autoimmune disorders and chronic diseases. According to a review on the prevalence of psychological problems among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression were 29.6% (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 24.3–35.4), 31.9% (95% CI: 27.5–36.7), and 33.7% (95% CI: 27.5–40.6), Int. J.
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