The mental health toll of Covid is less than feared, major study finds

The Covid pandemic has taken only a relatively limited toll on the mental health of the majority of people around the world, a major study has found.

Scientists said the most comprehensive research on mental well-being in the wake of Covid-19 underlines the strength of human resilience.

Some experts had warned of a ‘mental health tsunami’ due to the combined stress of illness and lockdowns. But a global analysis of studies suggests those fears were largely unfounded.

Canadian scientists led the review of 137 studies involving 134 groups of people from around the world, published in the BMJ. Most were from high or middle-income countries and three-quarters of the participants were adults, with the remaining one-quarter children or young people aged up to 19.

The researchers found that, where changes in mental health symptoms were identified, and compared with before the pandemic, those changes were minimal for the most part. The findings held true for both the population as a whole and specific groups.

‘Mental health in Covid-19 is much more nuanced than people have made it out to be,’ study senior author Prof Brett Thombs, of McGill University, Montreal, said.

‘Claims that the mental health of most people has deteriorated significantly during the pandemic have been based primarily on individual studies that are snapshots of a particular situation, place or time. They typically don’t involve any long-term comparison with what had existed before or came after.’

Fellow author Dr Ying Sun said: ‘In general, people have been much more resilient than many have assumed.’

Some women experienced a worsening of symptoms of anxiety, depression or general men—tal health, which researchers said could be due to family responsibilities, working in health care or, in some cases, family violence.

Dr Danielle Rice, of Canada’s McMaster University, said: ‘This is concerning and suggests that some women, as well as some people in other groups, have experienced changes for the worse in their mental health and will need ongoing access to mental health support.’

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