TY - JOUR
T1 - Mental health in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review
AU - Ahmed, Nafiso
AU - Barnett, Phoebe
AU - Greenburgh, Anna
AU - Pemovska, Tamara
AU - Stefanidou, Theodora
AU - Lyons, Natasha
AU - Ikhtabi, Sarah
AU - Talwar, Shivangi
AU - Francis, Emma R.
AU - Harris, Samantha M.
AU - Shah, Prisha
AU - Machin, Karen
AU - Jeffreys, Stephen
AU - Mitchell, Lizzie
AU - Lynch, Chris
AU - Foye, Una
AU - Schlief, Merle
AU - Appleton, Rebecca
AU - Saunders, Katherine R. K.
AU - Baldwin, Helen
AU - Allan, Sophie M.
AU - Sheridan-Rains, Luke
AU - Kharboutly, Omaya
AU - Kular, Ariana
AU - Goldblatt, Peter
AU - Stewart, Robert
AU - Kirkbride, James B.
AU - Lloyd-Evans, Brynmor
AU - Johnson, Sonia
N1 - Funding Information: This paper presents independent research commissioned and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme, conducted by the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Mental Health. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or its arm's length bodies, or other Government departments. RS is partly funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the South London, Maudsley National Health Service Foundation Trust, and King's College London; NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London at King's College Hospital National Health Service Foundation Trust; the DATAMIND Health Data Research UK Mental Health Data Hub (MRC grant MR/W014386); and the UK Prevention Research Partnership (Violence, Health and Society; MR-VO49879/1), an initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation Councils, the Department of Health and Social Care (England), the UK devolved administrations, and leading health research charities. ERF is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC Doctoral Training Programme: MR/N013867/1).
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate and far-reaching disruption to society, the economy, and health-care services. We synthesised evidence on the effect of the pandemic on mental health and mental health care in high-income European countries. We included 177 longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional studies comparing prevalence or incidence of mental health problems, mental health symptom severity in people with pre-existing mental health conditions, or mental health service use before versus during the pandemic, or between different timepoints of the pandemic. We found that epidemiological studies reported higher prevalence of some mental health problems during the pandemic compared with before it, but that in most cases this increase reduced over time. Conversely, studies of health records showed reduced incidence of new diagnoses at the start of the pandemic, which further declined during 2020. Mental health service use also declined at the onset of the pandemic but increased later in 2020 and through 2021, although rates of use did not return to pre-pandemic levels for some services. We found mixed patterns of effects of the pandemic on mental health and social outcome for adults already living with mental health conditions.
AB - The COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate and far-reaching disruption to society, the economy, and health-care services. We synthesised evidence on the effect of the pandemic on mental health and mental health care in high-income European countries. We included 177 longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional studies comparing prevalence or incidence of mental health problems, mental health symptom severity in people with pre-existing mental health conditions, or mental health service use before versus during the pandemic, or between different timepoints of the pandemic. We found that epidemiological studies reported higher prevalence of some mental health problems during the pandemic compared with before it, but that in most cases this increase reduced over time. Conversely, studies of health records showed reduced incidence of new diagnoses at the start of the pandemic, which further declined during 2020. Mental health service use also declined at the onset of the pandemic but increased later in 2020 and through 2021, although rates of use did not return to pre-pandemic levels for some services. We found mixed patterns of effects of the pandemic on mental health and social outcome for adults already living with mental health conditions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85162897724&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/s2215-0366(23)00113-x
DO - 10.1016/s2215-0366(23)00113-x
M3 - Review article
VL - 10
SP - 537
EP - 556
JO - The Lancet Psychiatry
JF - The Lancet Psychiatry
SN - 2215-0366
IS - 7
ER -