In our latest whitepaper, we take a look at how the pandemic has affected the mental health of the general public, including a tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression. We then focus on people who tested positive, those with pre-existing mental health disorders, and healthcare workers. 

In a World Health Organization (WHO) survey of 130 countries, 93% reported that the pandemic “has disrupted or halted critical mental health services…while the demand for mental health is increasing.” We take a deeper dive into these disruptions, and highlight several treatment adaptations being used to combat this issue. 

Finally, we know that when the pandemic began, more than 1,000 trials delayed their start or paused. In this whitepaper, we explore how these delays and pauses impacted patients who were enrolled in these trials. This is a complicated and less-studied aspect of the pandemic’s toll on mental health, but still important to consider.

The past year dealt a difficult hand to us all. We’ve witnessed an extraordinary amount of loss – we stayed away from family and friends, suffered unemployment and financial hardship, lived through a divisive election, and watched the death toll tick up as COVID-19 started impacting even the smallest communities.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there’s been a concern about the short- and long-term mental health impacts of this pandemic. Will our children be okay without socialization? Will our healthcare workers break from the weight of it all? And what about those who already live with mental health issues? These are just a few of the many questions with which we have grappled.

In this whitepaper, we take a look at the broad impact of COVID-19 on mental health, first in the general public, then on people who tested positive, people with pre-existing mental health disorders, and healthcare workers. We’ll explore mental health treatment during the pandemic, and will dive into what the mental health implications have been for clinical trial participants as well.

Impact of COVID-19 on mental health

General public

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), even among those who consider themselves healthy, infectious disease outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic can cause fear, worry, changes in sleep and eating patterns, and difficulty sleeping or concentrating.1 And then there’s the impact of social isolation on mental health. There is a broad body of work linking social isolation with poor mental health outcomes, and statistics over the last year bear this out: in late March, significantly more people who were sheltering in place reported negative mental health impacts compared to people who were not sheltering in place (37% to 47%).2 As psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin puts it, “Unlike any other disaster that I’ve studied, people are actively less close to friends and community.” Pennebaker notes that “fewer hugs and less shared grieving may help explain why people do not seem to be adjusting to the new normal.”3

An August 2020 report from the CDC revealed a tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression among 5,470 adults surveyed compared with a 2019 sample.4 Two additional national surveys found that in April 2020, the prevalence of depressive symptoms and “serious psychological distress” were three times 2018 figures.3 Researchers note that these rates are higher than following other traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina and September 11th. A federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered a more than 1,000% increase in April compared with the same time last year. 

Young adults have been hit hardest by the mental health difficulties of the pandemic. In the CDC study, anxiety or depression was reported by 62.9% of 18- to 24-year-olds.  In this age group, a quarter said they were using more drugs and alcohol to cope with pandemic-related stress, and a quarter said they had “seriously considered suicide” in the previous 30 days.3 Roxane Cohen Silver, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, attributes this to the fact that these young people “may have had more disruption in life events: graduations, weddings, the senior year of college and of high school. All those transitions were disrupted, as well as school and social connections, which we know are very important for young people.”3

The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers particularly salient resources for protecting mental health during the pandemic. They recommend: managing information consumption; following healthy daily routines; exercising; practicing relaxing in the present moment; doing meaningful things in free time; staying connected with others; and finding mental health resources as needed.

To what degree a person experiences mental health impacts depends on a variety of factors, such as social support, finances, and surrounding community. In addition to young people, the CDC report notes that other populations disproportionately impacted by mental health conditions during the pandemic include Latinos, African Americans, essential workers, unpaid caregivers for adults, and those receiving treatment for pre-existing psychiatric conditions.4

In the CDC study, anxiety or depression was reported by 62.9% of 18- to 24-year-olds

Click here to continue reading from PAGE 5, beginning with:  PEOPLE BEING DIAGNOSED with COVID