Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Jul 13:109:110207.
doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.110207. Epub 2020 Dec 15.

Prevalence of anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic: An updated meta-analysis of community-based studies

Javier Santabárbara  1 , Isabel Lasheras  2 , Darren M Lipnicki  3 , Juan Bueno-Notivol  4 , María Pérez-Moreno  5 , Raúl López-Antón  6 , Concepción De la Cámara  7 , Antonio Lobo  8 , Patricia Gracia-García  9
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Prevalence of anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic: An updated meta-analysis of community-based studies

Javier Santabárbara et al. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: The unprecedented worldwide crisis caused by the rapid spread of COVID-19 and the restrictive public health measures enforced by some countries to slow down its transmission have severely threatened the physical and mental wellbeing of communities globally.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of anxiety in the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two researchers independently searched for cross-sectional community-based studies published between December 1, 2019 and August 23, 2020, using PubMed, WoS, Embase, and other sources (e.g., grey literature, manual search).

Results: Of 3049 records retrieved, 43 studies were included. These studies yielded an estimated overall prevalence of anxiety of 25%, which varied significantly across the different tools used to measure anxiety. Consistently reported risk factors for the development of anxiety included initial or peak phase of the outbreak, female sex, younger age, marriage, social isolation, unemployment and student status, financial hardship, low educational level, insufficient knowledge of COVID-19, epidemiological or clinical risk of disease and some lifestyle and personality variables.

Conclusions: As the overall global prevalence of anxiety disorders is estimated to be 7.3% normally, our results suggest that rates of anxiety in the general population could be more than 3 times higher during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings suggest a substantial impact on mental health that should be targeted by individual and population-level strategies.

Keywords: Anxiety; COVID-19; Community-based studies; Meta-analysis; Prevalence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

We declare that Dr. P. Gracia-García has received Grant support from Janssen, AstraZeneca and the Ilustre Colegio de Médicos de Zaragoza; she has received Honorarium from AstraZeneca and Lilly; and she has received travel support from Lilly, Almirall, Lundbeck, Rovi, Pfizer and Janssen-Cilag. None of these activities is related to the current project. For the remaining authors, none were declared.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart of the study selection.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Forest plot of the prevalence of anxiety.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Time point of data collection in the different studies within the epidemic curve of the pandemic in their respective countries. Epidemic curves show a linear depiction of the daily new cases of COVID-19 and the data indicate the total number of confirmed cases the day the study began. Adapted from existing graphs from Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus) (Roser et al., 2020). (a) Chinese studies (blue) and their prevalence of anxiety (orange). (b) European studies. (c) Middle East studies. (d) South Asian studies. (e) Central and South American studies. (f) Australian studies (blue) and their prevalence of anxiety (orange). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ahmed M.Z., Ahmed O., Aibao Z., Hanbin S., Siyu L., Ahmad A. Epidemic of COVID-19 in China and associated psychological problems. Asian J. Psychiatr. 2020;51:102092. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102092. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahmed M.Z., Ahmed O., Aibao Z., Hanbin S., Siyu L., Ahmad A. Epidemic of COVID-19 in China and associated psychological problems. Asian J. Psychiatr. 2020;51:102092. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102092. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al Banna M.H., Sayeed A., Kundu S., Christopher E., Hasan M.T., Begum M.R., Kormoker T., Dola S.T.I., Hassan M.M., Chowdhury S., Khan M.S.I. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of the adult population in Bangladesh: a nationwide cross-sectional study. Int. J. Environ. Health Res. 2020:1–12. doi: 10.1080/09603123.2020.1802409. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alkhamees A.A., Alrashed S.A., Alzunaydi A.A., Almohimeed A.S., Aljohani M.S. The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the general population of Saudi Arabia. Compr. Psychiatry. 2020;102:152192. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2020.152192. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arafa A., Mohamed A., Saleh L., Senosy S. Psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public in Egypt. Community Ment. Health J. 2020 doi: 10.1007/s10597-020-00701-9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types