COVID-19 is a dangerous viral disease, which has already killed approximately 4,9 million people in the world. Because of how easily it spreads the world went into a full lockdown mode and cannot shake it two years after the pandemic has started.
Inevitably, as this new study from the University of Queensland has shown, it caused the rates of depressive and anxiety disorders to rise.
COVID-19 pandemic made more people depressed and anxious – women and younger people were affected more. Image credit: Marko Milivojevic via Pixnio, CC0 Public Domain
Scientists took a look at the impact of COVID-19 and its regulation efforts in 204 countries. They wanted to see how this pandemic contributes to mental health problems and find out who is affected the most. It is the first study in the world to quantify the prevalence and burden of the major depressive and anxiety disorders by age, sex, and location. And its findings are quite worrying.
Researchers roughly estimate that cases of major depressive disorder had risen by as much as 28 %, while anxiety disorders grew by 26 %. Unsurprisingly, scientists discovered that countries where COVID-19 delivered the most damage, had the highest increase in these mental health conditions. Researchers also found that women were affected more than men, and younger people were affected more than older people. Worsening mental health situation could be linked to COVID-19 control measures such as lockdowns and school closures, which might have something to do with damaged social life and loneliness. People were also more worried about the future, jobs and food availability.
Humans are very social and being around other humans is essential for our mental health. School closures forced young people to stay at home, away from their peers. And because households have been traditionally taken care of by women, they suffered heavier consequences as well.
Dr Damian Santomauro, lead author of the study, said: “Support services should be improved by promoting mental wellbeing, targeting factors contributing to poor mental health that have been made worse by the pandemic and improving treatment for those who develop a mental disorder. Even before the pandemic, mental health-care systems in most countries have historically been under-resourced and disorganised in their service delivery – so meeting the added demand for mental health services due to COVID-19 will be challenging.”
If we want to avoid long-lasting consequences of this pandemic, we need to pay attention to such factors as mental health of the population. It is one of those things that is going to come around to bite you if you’re not careful enough. We definitely don’t want to come out of this pandemic all being sad, anxious and depressed.
Source: University of Queensland