Anxiety surged during pandemic, particularly among women - study
Young people suffered as school closures kept them away from friends, and many women found themselves bearing the brunt of household work and facing an increased risk of domestic violence.
It's been quite the stressful pandemic year (photo credit: UNSPLASH)
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in anxiety and major
depressive disorders across the world, particularly among women and
young people, a study published in The Lancet on Friday found.
Young
people suffered as school closures kept them away from friends, and
many women found themselves bearing the brunt of household work and
facing an increased risk of domestic violence, the researchers said.
The
study, led by academics at the University of Queensland, Australia,
recorded 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders and 53 million
of major depressive disorder as COVID-19 spread in 2020.
"Sadly, for numerous reasons, women were always more likely to be
worse affected by the social and economic consequences of the pandemic,"
study co-author Alize Ferrari said.
"Additional
caring and household responsibilities tend to fall on women, and
because women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, which
increased at various stages of the pandemic."
COVID-19 related stressors survey resutls (credit: BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV)
School closures and other curbs limited "young people’s ability to learn and interact with their peers," she added.
The
research included 48 previously conducted studies from around the world
and pulled together their findings in a meta-analysis to quantify the
prevalence of mental health disorders in 204 countries and territories
in 2020.
That made
it "the first global insight into the burden of depressive and anxiety
disorders during the pandemic," the authors of a linked comment piece
who were not involved in the study said.
It found there was an estimated 28% increase in cases of major
depressive disorder, to 246 million cases, up from an estimated 193
million cases had the pandemic not happened.
There
was a similar 26% increase in estimated cases of anxiety, with an
estimated 374 million cases compared to 298 million without the
pandemic.
The authors of the study warned that there was a lack of high-quality
data on the impact of the pandemic on mental health in many poorer
countries, adding extrapolated estimates for those countries should be
interpreted with caution.
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