Anxiety surged during pandemic, particularly among women - study
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[October 09, 2021]
By Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) - The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in anxiety and
major depressive disorders across the world, particularly among women
and young people, a study published in the Lancet on Friday found.
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Young people suffered as school closures kept them away from
friends, and many women found themselves bearing the brunt of
household work and facing an increased risk of domestic violence,
the researchers said.
The study, led by academics at the University of Queensland,
Australia, recorded 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders
and 53 million of major depressive disorder as COVID-19 spread in
2020.
"Sadly, for numerous reasons, women were always more likely to be
worse affected by the social and economic consequences of the
pandemic," study co-author Alize Ferrari said.
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"Additional caring and household responsibilities tend to fall on
women, and because women are more likely to be victims of domestic
violence, which increased at various stages of the pandemic."
School closures and other curbs limited "young people’s ability to
learn and interact with their peers," she added.
The research included 48 previously conducted studies from around
the world, and pulled together their findings in a meta-analysis to
quantify the prevalence of mental health disorders in 204 countries
and territories in 2020.
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![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Oct/09/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png) That made it "the first global
insight into the burden of depressive and
anxiety disorders during the pandemic," the
authors of a linked comment piece who were not
involved in the study said.
It found there was an estimated 28% increase in
cases of major depressive disorder, to 246
million cases, up from an estimated 193 million
cases had the pandemic not happened.
There was a similar 26% increase in estimated
cases of anxiety, with an estimated 374 million
cases compared to 298 million without the
pandemic.
The authors of the study warned that there was a
lack of high quality data on the impact of the
pandemic on mental health in many poorer
countries, adding extrapolated estimates for
those countries should be interpreted with
caution.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Andrew
Heavens)
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