During a coronavirus infection pandemic, the number of cases of clinical depression and alarming disorders around the world has increased by more than a quarter. An assessment of the consequences conducted an international team of scientists whose article was published in the Lancet magazine.
Researchers analyzed 5683 sources containing population surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of these, 48 articles were selected that meet the criteria for inclusion – 46 concerned a large depressive disorder, and 27 alarming disorders. The collected data was used to build with the help method of metairegression model of the prevalence of clinical depression and alarming disorders before and during a pandemic.
It turned out that in the absence of a pandemic around the world in 2020 there would be 193 million people with clinical depression. Analysis identified that in reality this figure was 246 million cases – their number increased by 28 percent. The number of cases of anxiety disorders increased by 26 percent – they were 374 million compared to the expected number of 298 million.
Women were more affected – they had 35 million “excessive” cases of clinical depression and almost 52 million – alarming disorders. The greatest increase in cases had to go to young people. Per 100 thousand people aged 20 to 24 years – 1118 redundant cases of large depressive disorder and 1331 excessive occasion of anxiety disorders.