The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns: a review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments.
TLDR
The psychological impact of COVID-19 lockdowns is small in magnitude and highly heterogeneous, suggesting that lockdowns do not have uniformly detrimental effects on mental health and that most people are psychologically resilient to their effects.Abstract:
Lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have had profound effects on everyday life worldwide, but their effect on mental health remains unclear because available meta-analyses and reviews rely mostly on cross-sectional studies. We conducted a rapid review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments investigating the relationship between COVID-19 lockdowns and mental health. A total of 25 studies involving 72 004 participants and 58 effect sizes were analyzed. Using a random effects model, we found that lockdowns had small effects on mental health symptoms, g = 0.17, s.e. = 0.05, 95% CI (0.06-0.24), p = 0.001, but the effects on positive psychological functioning, g = -0.12, s.e. = 0.11, 95% CI (-0.33 to 0.09), p = 0.27, were not significant. Multivariate analysis of effect sizes revealed significant and relatively small effect sizes for anxiety and depression, while those for social support, loneliness, general distress, negative affect, and suicide risk were not significant. The results indicated substantial heterogeneity among studies, but meta-regression analyses found no significant moderation effects for mean age, gender, continent, COVID-19 death rate, days of lockdown, publication status or study design. The psychological impact of COVID-19 lockdowns is small in magnitude and highly heterogeneous, suggesting that lockdowns do not have uniformly detrimental effects on mental health and that most people are psychologically resilient to their effects.read more
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A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies comparing mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which mental health symptoms changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, whether changes were persistent or short-lived, and if changes were symptom specific.
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A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies comparing mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
TL;DR: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies examined changes in mental health among the same group of participants before vs. during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as discussed by the authors .
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Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis.
Mareike Ernst,Daniel Niederer,Antonia M. Werner,Sara J. Czaja,Christopher Mikton,Anthony D. Ong,Tony Rosen,Elmar Brähler,Manfred E. Beutel +8 more
TL;DR: In this article , a systematic review with meta-analysis was carried out to ascertain whether loneliness has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and to synthesize relevant high-quality primary studies.
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Mental health and social interactions of older people with physical disabilities in England during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study.
Andrew Steptoe,Giorgio Di Gessa +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the emotional and social experience of older people with physical disabilities during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and found that significantly more people with ADL impairment had clinically significant symptoms of depression.
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Immediate and Longer-Term Changes in the Mental Health and Well-being of Older Adults in England During the COVID-19 Pandemic
TL;DR: In a longitudinal cohort study of older adults living in England, mental health and well-being continued to worsen as the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, and socioeconomic inequalities persisted as mentioned in this paper .
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