Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria.
Department of Media and Communication, University of Munich, Germany.
Soc Sci Med. 2020 Nov;265:113532. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113532. Epub 2020 Nov 18.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an immense global health threat that has invoked unheard-of containment measures in numerous countries to reduce the number of new infections.
The sequential introduction of severe measures, intentionally aiming at reducing the number of new infections, also imposes sharp restrictions on populations with potentially unintended, detrimental effects on public mental health.
We used observational data reflecting the number of phone calls made to national crisis hotlines in Austria and Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020-April 2020) to investigate the impact of government restrictions as well as their later revocations on public mental health. Importantly, both countries have comparable health care systems, are similar in their political and socio-economic idiosyncrasies, and took similar restrictive government measures in order to contain COVID-19-but implemented them at different points in time.
Analysis indicated that the number of crisis hotline calls increased in both countries. This increase seemed to occur at around the same time as the implementation of restrictive governmental responses. Importantly, the revocation of these governmental restrictions (i.e., re-opening the economy, allowing more social contact) seemed to occur at around the same time as the decrease in the number of calls.
The present study supports the notion that the implementation of severe measures affects public mental health. However, the negative mental health effects of COVID-19 may be reduced if severe governmental restrictions are kept in place as briefly as possible.
冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行是一场巨大的全球健康威胁，许多国家采取了前所未有的遏制措施，以减少新感染人数。
为了减少新感染人数，连续采取严厉措施，也对人口造成了明显的限制，对公众心理健康产生了潜在的、不利的影响。
我们使用反映奥地利和德国在 COVID-19 大流行期间（2020 年 1 月至 4 月）拨打国家危机热线电话数量的观察数据，调查政府限制措施及其随后撤销对公众心理健康的影响。重要的是，这两个国家具有相似的医疗保健系统，在政治和社会经济方面具有相似的特点，为了遏制 COVID-19，两国都采取了类似的限制性政府措施，但实施时间不同。
分析表明，两国的危机热线电话数量都有所增加。这种增加似乎发生在实施限制性政府应对措施的同时。重要的是，这些政府限制措施的撤销（即重新开放经济，允许更多的社会接触）似乎发生在电话数量减少的同时。
本研究支持这样一种观点，即实施严厉措施会影响公众心理健康。然而，如果尽可能短暂地实施严格的政府限制，可能会减少 COVID-19 对心理健康的负面影响。
