COVID-19 pandemic, government responses, and public mental health: Investigating consequences through crisis hotline calls in two countries
COVID-19 pandemic, government responses, and public mental health: Investigating consequences through crisis hotline calls in two countries
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DOI：
10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113532
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发表时间：
2020-11-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Scherr, Sebastian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Arendt, Florian;Markiewitz, Antonia;Scherr, Sebastian
理由：冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行是一个巨大的全球健康威胁，许多国家采取了前所未有的控制措施来减少新感染人数。目标：为了减少新感染人数而采取的一系列严厉措施，也对人口施加了严格的限制，可能对公众心理健康产生意想不到的有害影响。方法：我们使用反映2019冠状病毒病大流行期间（2020年1月至2020年4月）奥地利和德国国家危机热线电话数量的观察数据，调查政府限制以及后来取消限制对公众心理健康的影响。重要的是，两国的医疗体系相当，政治和社会经济特征相似，为遏制covid -19采取了类似的限制性政府措施，但实施时间不同。结果：分析表明，两国的危机热线电话数量都有所增加。这种增长似乎与限制性政府应对措施的实施几乎同时发生。重要的是，这些政府限制的撤销（即重新开放经济，允许更多的社会接触）似乎与电话数量的减少几乎同时发生。结论：本研究支持严厉措施的实施会影响公众心理健康的观点。然而，如果尽可能短时间地保持严格的政府限制，COVID-19对心理健康的负面影响可能会减少。
Rationale: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an immense global health threat that has invoked unheard-of containment measures in numerous countries to reduce the number of new infections.Objective: The sequential introduction of severe measures, intentionally aiming at reducing the number of new infections, also imposes sharp restrictions on populations with potentially unintended, detrimental effects on public mental health.Method: We used observational data reflecting the number of phone calls made to national crisis hotlines in Austria and Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020-April 2020) to investigate the impact of government restrictions as well as their later revocations on public mental health. Importantly, both countries have comparable health care systems, are similar in their political and socio-economic idiosyncrasies, and took similar restrictive government measures in order to contain COVID-19-but implemented them at different points in time.Results: Analysis indicated that the number of crisis hotline calls increased in both countries. This increase seemed to occur at around the same time as the implementation of restrictive governmental responses. Importantly, the revocation of these governmental restrictions (i.e., re-opening the economy, allowing more social contact) seemed to occur at around the same time as the decrease in the number of calls.Conclusions: The present study supports the notion that the implementation of severe measures affects public mental health. However, the negative mental health effects of COVID-19 may be reduced if severe governmental restrictions are kept in place as briefly as possible.