Flattening the Mental Health Curve: COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders Are Associated With Alterations in Mental Health Search Behavior in the United States.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to dramatic changes worldwide in people's everyday lives. To combat the pandemic, many governments have implemented social distancing, quarantine, and stay-at-home orders. There is limited research on the impact of such extreme measures on mental health. OBJECTIVE:The goal of this study was to examine whether stay-at-home orders produced differential changes in mental health symptoms using internet search queries on a national scale. METHODS:In the United States, individual states vary in their adoption of measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19; as of March 23, 2020, 11 of the 50 states had issued stay-at-home orders. The staggered rollout of stay-at-home measures across the United States allows us to investigate whether these measur

SUBMITTER: Jacobson NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7265799 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature