The coronavirus pandemic is creating a large spike in significant psychological distress among Americans, with the first month of the pandemic causing as much distress in the same number of individuals that experienced it during the whole previous year, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
The coronavirus pandemic is creating a large spike in significant psychological distress among Americans, with the first month of the pandemic causing as much distress in the same number of individuals that experienced it during the whole previous year, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Findings from the first longitudinal study of psychological distress during the pandemic show that among a representative sample of Americans, more than 10% reported experiencing symptoms of significant psychological distress during April and May of 2020—the same amount they reported experiencing over an entire year during a survey conducted a year earlier.
The study also found that people with distress prior to the pandemic were more likely to report distress during the pandemic. Among people with severe distress prior to the pandemic, 48% reported distress during the pandemic while among people with low or no distress prior to the pandemic, just 3% reported distress during the pandemic.
The findings are published online by the journal Preventive Medicine.
“We found equal numbers of people experienced serious psychological distress over 30 days during the pandemic as did over an entire year prior to the pandemic,” said Joshua Breslau, the study's lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.
Read more at RAND Corporation
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