Epidemiology of Mental Health Disorders and Ageing Research Group, Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat, Spain.
Research, Teaching, and Innovation Unit, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, 08830 Sant Boi de Llobregat, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 4;20(4):2765. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20042765.
Research suggests that changes in social support and loneliness have affected mental disorder symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are a lack of studies comparing the robustness of these associations.
The aims were to estimate the strength of the associations of loneliness and social support with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) in the general population.
The method entailed a systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis of quantitative studies.
Seventy-three studies were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled correlations of the effect size of the association of loneliness with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress were 0.49, 0.40, and 0.38, respectively. The corresponding figures for social support were 0.29, 0.19, and 0.18, respectively. Subgroup analyses revealed that the strength of some associations could be influenced by the sociodemographic characteristics of the study samples, such as age, gender, region, and COVID-19 stringency index, and by methodological moderators, such as sample size, collection date, methodological quality, and the measurement scales.
Social support had a weak association with mental disorder symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic while the association with loneliness was moderate. Strategies to address loneliness could be highly effective in reducing the impact of the pandemic on social relationships and mental health.
研究表明，在 COVID-19 大流行期间，社会支持和孤独感的变化影响了精神障碍症状。然而，缺乏比较这些关联稳健性的研究。
本研究旨在评估孤独感和社会支持与 COVID-19 大流行期间（2020-2022 年）普通人群中抑郁、焦虑和创伤后应激症状之间关联的强度。
采用系统评价和定量研究的随机效应荟萃分析方法。
共有 73 项研究纳入荟萃分析。孤独感与抑郁、焦虑和创伤后应激症状的关联效应大小的合并相关系数分别为 0.49、0.40 和 0.38。社会支持的相应数值分别为 0.29、0.19 和 0.18。亚组分析表明，一些关联的强度可能受到研究样本的社会人口统计学特征的影响，例如年龄、性别、地区和 COVID-19 严格程度指数，以及方法学因素的影响，例如样本量、采集日期、方法学质量和测量量表。
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，社会支持与精神障碍症状的关联较弱，而与孤独感的关联较强。解决孤独感的策略可能在减轻大流行对社会关系和心理健康的影响方面非常有效。
