Prevalence of Risk Factors Associated With Mental Health Symptoms Among the Outpatient Psychiatric Patients and Their Family Members in China During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of and risk factors associated with mental health symptoms in psychiatric outpatients and their family members in China during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: This cross-sectional, survey-based, region-stratified study collected demographic data and mental health measurements for depression, anxiety and acute stress from 269 psychiatric patients and 231 family members in the Second Xiangya Hospital in China from April 27, 2020 to May 8, 2020. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to identify risk factors associated with mental health outcomes.Result: The results of this survey revealed that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and acute stress were highly prevalent symptoms in the psychiatric patient group. Respondents who were female, unmarried or highly educated were significantly more likely to have the above symptoms. In the family member group, more than half of them felt that the burden of nursing had increased during the epidemic. Subjects with a high degree of burden of care were significantly more likely to exhibit the above mental health symptoms, while females were significantly more likely to have acute stress.Conclusions: The results of this survey revealed a high prevalence of mental health disorder symptoms among psychiatric patients and an increased burden of nursing among their family members after the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Understanding the risk factors in those particular groups of people help improve the public health service system for mental health problems during public health events. For further study, exploration of the needs of mental health services and dynamic change tracking will be needed.

Social support as a mediator between anxiety and quality of sleep among Chinese parents of special children

“…For parents of special children, they had to take care and train children at home themselves, without professional help of rehabilitation institute (the kindergarten) and without adequate outdoor physical activity. In this situation, as common mental health influence factors, anxiety and sleep problems may occur more obviously (Qiu et al, 2021;Blasco-Lafarga et al, 2022). We have seen that social support will be the key point for solving anxiety and sleep disorders through their logical relationship in this study.…”

“…So, previous studies have found that anxiety, social support, coping style and sleep quality are related to each other. In addition, many studies have shown that the COVID-19 epidemic will affect individual sleep, anxiety and other mental health (Stanton et al, 2020;Qiu et al, 2021;Chatterjee, 2022). Studies have explored the psychometric relationship among these related variables, but the mediating role of social support and coping style between anxiety and sleep quality has been explored very rarely.…”

COVID-19 vaccination coverage among patients with psychiatric disorders in China during the pandemic: a cross-sectional study

“…Previous studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of anxiety and stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), leading to exacerbation of other psychiatric illnesses, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), substance abuse, and long-term cognitive decline [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Current studies have revealed high prevalence of depressive, anxiety, acute stress symptoms and increased COVID-19 related self-harm or suicidality in individuals with mental illness as well as an increased burden of nursing among their family members after the COVID-19 outbreak [15][16][17][18]. Moreover, patients in psychiatric institutes are more vulnerable to severe viral outbreaks because of their unclear movement trajectories before admission and low compliance to epidemic prevention measures like wearing masks after admission, easily leading to cluster infections in the wards [19].…”

Changes in Mental Health among Psychiatric Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hong Kong—A Cross-Sectional Study

“…A case-control study conducted by Fengyi et al revealed that psychiatric patients in China had higher mean Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R); Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21); and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) scores than healthy controls during the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak [37]. Recent studies targeting psychiatric patients with different backgroundsuch as age groups, occupations, and nationalities-revealed high proportion of patients suffering from depression, anxiety, and acute stress [38][39][40]. Patients also reported reduced quality of life in some studies [41,42].…”