LVR Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Duisburg-Essen, University Hospital Essen, Essen, NRW, Germany.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2021 Aug;67(5):550-558. doi: 10.1177/0020764020960773. Epub 2020 Oct 10.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected individuals, governments, and health care centers all around the globe. Social isolation obligation, restricted working shifts, and curfews posed unprecedented challenges for the population. Social isolation, boredom, and financial problems have been shown to stress peoples' mental health in previous comparable pandemics and even in regular situations. Individuals with a mental illness may particularly be at risk due to an already instable mental health status. While research mainly focused on the pandemic's impact on somatic health care and risk group patients, psychological obstacles caused by legal restrictions and their impact on already mentally affected individuals have been discussed, but so far only scarcely been investigated in a large sample. For this study, 12,028 people completed an online-survey during that time in Germany, when the COVID-19 outbreak gained momentum with a surge in cases and death rates as well as a lockdown of the public life. Generalized anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-2), distress (distress thermometer) and COVID-19-specific items, especially COVID-19-related fear, were assessed in healthy individuals, patients suffering from mental illnesses, and in patients with chronic somatic diseases, known to be at risk for an unfavorable course of COVID-19. Results show that the COVID-19-pandemic significantly worsens psychometric scores throughout the population - individuals with already heightened levels, like people with mental illnesses now reach concerning levels. Surprisingly, even though generalized anxiety, depressive symptoms, and perceived distress are elevated in individuals with mental illness, these individuals seem to be less affected by explicit COVID-19-related fear, than the general population or individuals with chronic somatic diseases. This study thus objectively quantifies the psychological impact of COVID-19 in a large sample and provides evidence for not only the public, but also critically affected individuals with a mental illness.
COVID-19 大流行影响了全球的个人、政府和医疗机构。社交隔离义务、限制轮班和宵禁给人们带来了前所未有的挑战。在以前类似的大流行中，甚至在正常情况下，社交隔离、无聊和经济问题已经对人们的心理健康造成了压力。由于心理健康已经不稳定，患有精神疾病的人可能特别容易受到影响。虽然研究主要集中在大流行对躯体保健和风险群体患者的影响上，但法律限制造成的心理障碍及其对已经受心理影响的个体的影响已经被讨论过，但到目前为止，在大样本中仅被很少地调查过。在这项研究中，12028 人在德国 COVID-19 爆发期间完成了一项在线调查，当时病例和死亡率飙升，公众生活被封锁，COVID-19 疫情加剧。在健康个体、患有精神疾病的患者和患有慢性躯体疾病的患者中评估了广泛性焦虑症（GAD-7）、抑郁症（PHQ-2）、痛苦（痛苦温度计）和 COVID-19 特异性项目，特别是与 COVID-19 相关的恐惧，这些患者已知有 COVID-19 不良病程的风险。结果表明，COVID-19 大流行在整个人群中显著恶化了心理测量评分——已经处于较高水平的个体，如患有精神疾病的个体，现在达到了令人担忧的水平。令人惊讶的是，尽管患有精神疾病的个体的广泛性焦虑、抑郁症状和感知痛苦增加，但与普通人群或患有慢性躯体疾病的个体相比，这些个体似乎较少受到明确的 COVID-19 相关恐惧的影响。因此，这项研究客观地在大样本中量化了 COVID-19 的心理影响，并为不仅是公众，也为患有精神疾病的受严重影响的个体提供了证据。
