The quality of research on mental health related to the COVID-19 pandemic: A note of caution after a systematic review

Abstract

Background and aims SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has spurred scientific production in diverse fields of knowledge, including mental health. Yet, the quality of current research may be challenged by the urgent need to provide immediate results to understand and alleviate the consequences of the pandemic. This study aims to examine compliance with basic methodological quality criteria and open scientific research practices on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Method and results Twenty-eight studies were identified through a systematic search. Most of them met the requirements related to reporting key methodological and statistical information. However, the widespread use of convenience samples and the lack of a priori power analysis, coupled with low compliance with open science recommendations, such as pre-registration of studies and availability of databases, raise concerns about the validity, generalisability, and reproducibility of the findings. Conclusions While the importance of offering rapid evidence-based responses to mitigate mental health problems stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic is undeniable, it should not be done at the expense of sacrificing scientific rigor. The results of this study may stimulate researchers and funding agencies to try to orchestrate efforts and resources and follow standard codes of good scientific practice.

Psychological Adjustment in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Positive and Negative Mental Health Outcomes in the General Population

“…The cross-sectional nature of our research design does not allow a direct inference about causality. Finally, web panels or internet surveys are not necessarily representative of the population (Keinding & Louis, 2018), and this may affect the possibility of generalizing the present results, as internet access is not universal and, in particular, some vulnerable subgroups to the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., the elderly or the poor) may not be well represented for most studies using internet-based procedures (Nieto et al, 2020). Nevertheless, in our case, although this limitation may be relevant, the sample was relatively large and was composed by stratified quotas representative of some important demographic characteristics (i.e., sex, age, and Autonomous communities of the country).…”

Post-Traumatic Growth and Stress-Related Responses During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a National Representative Sample: The Role of Positive Core Beliefs About the World and Others

“…Also, the study is a national representative sample in terms of sex, age, income, and region of the country, which is important given the uneven distribution of the pandemic in almost any country ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ). The representativeness of the sample is an asset of the study given that, as the systematic review by Nieto et al ( 2020 ) has revealed, most of the studies that have been published so far on mental health problems associated to the COVID-19 have small or unrepresentative samples which limits their generalizability. Furthermore, the instruments selected have shown in previous studies to provide robust estimations of the variables under study.…”

“…Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been preceded by other pandemics (such as SARS in 2002, Ebola in 2013, influenza A/H1N1 in 2015, or Zika in 2015) the virus’ rapid spread and lethality has put global health systems and the global economy under unprecedented strain. Throughout the world, there has been already literally thousands of studies on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (Odone et al 2020 ), including aspects of mental health and well-being (Nieto et al 2020 ). For instance, an initial meta-analysis of 17 studies published until May 2020 (Salari et al 2020 ) has shown high levels of prevalence of symptoms of stress (29.6%), anxiety (31.9%), and depression (33.7%) among the general population.…”

Reviewing stress in COVID-19 times

“…The attention scans on the physiology of emotion were later located in the brain, mainly in the limbic system; however, there is still much evidence between emotional disorder and vascular system, and there is even an extensive literature on how to intervene and help the patient. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] In fact of all the circumstances, Covid-19 infected patients should be treated not only for their somatic symptoms but also with interventions regarding their psychological, psychiatric and life quality aspects. 25…”