Time trends in mental health indicators in Germany's adult population before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to compromise mental health. Despite a large number of studies, evidence on the development of mental health in general populations during the pandemic is inconclusive. One reason may be that representative data spanning the whole pandemic and allowing for comparisons to pre-pandemic data are scarce.

Methods

We analyzed representative data from telephone surveys of Germany's adults. Three mental health indicators were observed in ~1,000 and later up to 3,000 randomly sampled participants monthly until June 2022: symptoms of depression (observed since April 2019, PHQ-2), symptoms of anxiety (GAD-2), and self-rated mental health (latter two observed since March 2021). We produced time series graphs including

SUBMITTER: Mauz E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9995751 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature