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Review
. 2020 Oct:292:113347.
doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113347. Epub 2020 Jul 31.

Prevalence of posttraumatic and general psychological stress during COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis

Jessica E Cooke  1 , Rachel Eirich  1 , Nicole Racine  1 , Sheri Madigan  2
Affiliations
Review

Prevalence of posttraumatic and general psychological stress during COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis

Jessica E Cooke et al. Psychiatry Res. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests rates of posttraumatic stress and psychological stress in the general population are elevated due to COVID-19. However, a meta-analysis is needed to attain more precise prevalence estimates due to between-study variability. Thus, we performed a rapid review and meta-analysis of posttraumatic stress and general psychological stress symptoms during COVID-19. Electronic searches were conducted up to May 26th, 2020 using key terms: mental illness and COVID-19. A total of k = 14 non-overlapping studies were identified for inclusion. Random effects meta-analyses indicated that the pooled prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms and psychological stress in the general population was 23.88% and 24.84%, respectively. In both meta-analyses, the prevalence of stress symptoms was higher in unpublished compared to peer-reviewed studies. Overall, nearly one-in-four adults experienced significant stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological resources and services must be allocated to help address the mental health burden of COVID-19. High quality, longitudinal research on the long-term mental health effects of the pandemic is greatly needed.

Keywords: COVID-19; Mental health; Meta-analysis; Posttraumatic stress; Psychological stress; Rapid review.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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