Recovering from the COVID-19 Pandemic, Informing Future Public Health Crises, and Building a Global Evidence Base for Mental Health Research: A Systematic Review of COVID-19-related Mental Health

What will the research be about? We will investigate (1) if mental health changed from before COVID-19 to during the pandemic and how much; (2) how mental health changed across different pandemic periods; and (3) if there were effective programs to help people maintain positive mental health during COVID-19. What will be our outcomes? First, we will compare mental health symptoms before and during the pandemic and at different pandemic periods to determine how much they changed. Second, will compare mental health of people who received COVID-19-related mental health treatments to similar people who did not receive treatment to see how effective different treatments were. We will assess all outcomes for the general population and subgroups (e.g., women, men, older adults, people from low-and-middle income countries, heath care workers). Who will be in the study? We will include data from studies conducted anywhere in the world that looked at mental health in people affected by COVID-19. From April 2020 to July 2023 we searched 10 English- and Chinese-language databases to find eligible studies. We reviewed over 161,000 studies and found over 500 eligible studies that reported how mental health symptoms changed and over 400 that examined mental health interventions. What will the research team do? We will extract relevant data from each eligible study. Then, we will use statistical methods to combine results from all studies and estimate overall changes and treatment effects. We will do this for the general population and for approximately 15 subgroups. How will people use the results? Our study represents the most comprehensive review of mental health in COVID-19 in the world. We will be able to provide evidence that scholars can use to better understand how people respond to infectious disease outbreaks or other major society-wide disasters. Governments and health care systems will use or results to develop mental health plans for future crises.