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Young people suffered as school closures kept them away from their friends, and many women found themselves bearing the brunt of housework and facing an increased risk of domestic violence, the women said. researchers.
The study, led by academics from the University of Queensland, Australia, recorded 76 million more cases of anxiety disorders and 53 million major depressive disorders as COVID-19 spread in 2020.
“Unfortunately, for many reasons, women were always more likely to be more affected by the social and economic consequences of the pandemic,” said study co-author Alize Ferrari.
“Additional care and household responsibilities tend to fall on women, and because women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, which has increased at different stages of the pandemic. ”
School closures and other restrictions have limited “the ability of young people to learn and interact with their peers,” she added.
The research included 48 studies previously conducted around the world and brought their findings together in a meta-analysis to quantify the prevalence of mental health disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020.
This made it “the first global look at the burden of depressive and anxiety disorders during the pandemic,” said the authors of a related commentary article who were not involved in the study.
It found that there was an estimated 28% increase in cases of major depressive disorder, to 246 million cases, from around 193 million cases if the pandemic had not occurred.
There has been a similar 26% increase in estimated cases of anxiety, with around 374 million cases compared to 298 million without the pandemic.
The study authors warned that there was a lack of high-quality data on the impact of the pandemic on mental health in many of the poorest countries, adding that extrapolated estimates for these countries must be interpreted. with caution.
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