Mental health of patients with mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: a questionnaire-based survey weighted for attrition

  1. Pernille Kølbæk
  2. Oskar Hougaard Jefsen
  3. Maria Speed
  4. Søren Dinesen Østergaard

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Abstract

No abstract available

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  1. Version published to 10.1080/08039488.2021.1970222
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.13.21253363: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical review board approval is not required for survey-based studies in Denmark.
    RandomizationSurvey procedure and questionnaire: The invitation to participate was sent to 6,000 randomly drawn patients via the electronic mailing system used by the Danish authorities (e-Boks).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: There are limitations to this study, which should be taken into account by the reader. First, the response rate was rather low although similar to that of other surveys among individuals with mental disorders.6,8 However, a main strength of the study was the possibility to weigh the results based on attrition, which will have reduced the impact of potential selection bias. To further reduce selection bias, invitation to the survey was based on random sampling. Second, the validity of self-reported symptoms and psychological well-being may be questionable if respondents have poor insight or reduced cognitive function. However, self-reported and clinician-rated psychiatric symptoms generally exhibit high concordance,37,38 which supports the validity of the findings of this study. Third, invitations to participate were distributed 11 weeks after the lockdown was lifted, which could have led to recall bias. To reduce the impact of this potential bias, we included a brief summary of the lockdown’s events and restrictions in the questionnaire. Relatedly, patients’ general attitudes could influence their perceptions of the reasons for the deterioration of their mental health and the reported reasons may therefore not necessarily reflect the impact of the lockdown per se. For instance, patients who were generally unsatisfied with their psychiatric treatment may have consciously or subconsciously used the survey as an opportunity to voice this opinion and thus have attrib...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.13.21253363 on medRxiv