Prevalence and incidence of stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms among Brazilians in quarantine across the early phases of the COVID-19 crisis
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
Objective
The present study aimed to measure the prevalence and incidence of stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms in Brazilians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Method
We assessed 103 (54 women, 49 men) participants online in three periods of the pandemic: March 2020 (T1), April 2020 (T2), and June 2020 (T3). Prevalence and incidence were identified when mental health scores were two standard deviations above the mean compared to normative data. Mental health indicators were measured using the Perceived Stress Scale, the Filgueiras Depression Index, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory – State Subscale.
Results
At T1, 89% of individuals were below cut-off scores for stress, anxiety, and depression, which dropped to 35% by T3. Stress prevalence was 1.9% at T1, 7.8% at T2, and 28.2% at T3. Depression prevalence was 0% at T1, 23.3% at T2, and 25.2% at T3. State anxiety prevalence was 10.7% at T1, 11.7% at T2, and 45.6% at T3. Stress incidence increased by 7.8% from T1 to T2, and 23.3% from T2 to T3. Depression incidence increased by 23.3% from T1 to T2, and 15.5% from T2 to T3. Anxiety incidence increased by 9.7% from T1 to T2, and 39.8% from T2 to T3. Stress severity scores significantly increased from 16.1±8.7 at T1 to 23.5±8.4 at T2, and 30.3±6.0 at T3. Depression severity scores significantly increased from 48.5±20.5 at T1 to 64.7±30.2 at T2, and 75.9±26.1 at T3. Anxiety increased from 49.0±13.4 at T1 to 53.5±12.5 at T2 and 62.3±13.4 at T3. Females had significantly higher anxiety scores than males by T3 (66.7±11.8 vs. 57.4±13.5).
Conclusion
Prevalence and incidence of stress, depression, and anxiety significantly increased throughout the pandemic. The largest increase in stress and anxiety occurred between T2 and T3, and between T1 and T2 for depression. Severity of stress, depression, and anxiety increased throughout the study.
Article activity feed
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.09.07.21263246: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: The informed consent document was presented before the questionnaires, and the consent was a requirement for participation.
IRB: The Ethics Committee at Rio de Janeiro State University approved all procedures (report #2.990.087). 2.2. Measures: We adopted three validated and normalized measures to ensure good quality of data; one instrument for each psychological dimension: psychological stress, depression, and anxiety.Sex as a biological variable Demographic information was collected through a simple one-page questionnaire containing: gender (male, female and non-specific), age (in years) and risk for COVID-19 (“Do you have any current disease that increases your risk for COVID-19 … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.09.07.21263246: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: The informed consent document was presented before the questionnaires, and the consent was a requirement for participation.
IRB: The Ethics Committee at Rio de Janeiro State University approved all procedures (report #2.990.087). 2.2. Measures: We adopted three validated and normalized measures to ensure good quality of data; one instrument for each psychological dimension: psychological stress, depression, and anxiety.Sex as a biological variable Demographic information was collected through a simple one-page questionnaire containing: gender (male, female and non-specific), age (in years) and risk for COVID-19 (“Do you have any current disease that increases your risk for COVID-19 lethality? Randomization Furthermore, differences in PSS-10, FDI, and STATI-S between data-collection (time), gender, risk (binary variable indicating whether individual has a pre-existing comorbidity that increased risk of COVID-19 fatality) and their interaction were evaluated using linear mixed effects models, where a random intercept was generated per participant. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not 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:The present research had some limitations that are important to highlight. Limitations include the self-reported nature of the data, as participants filled out the questionnaire by filling out a 45-minute Google Form, which was used to analyze mental health outcomes. Further, participants were asked if they had an illness which increased fatality risk for COVID-19 and were given a few examples of such conditions (i.e., obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and other cardiac and respiratory conditions). Therefore, outside of these categories given to participants, the answer to this question relies on their knowledge of comorbidities that increase fatality risk for COVID-19 and their perception to the risk. For example, an individual with Vitamin D deficiency may be unaware of their status and state that they do not have any condition that increases risk for COVID-19 lethality, even though this condition increases fatality risk for COVID-19 (World Health Organization, 2017).
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.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
-