Many people reported that during the first waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, when government restrictions around the world prevented people from leaving their homes, they felt that isolation negatively affected mental health. However, research has shown that in countries where the lockdown was stricter, the effect was the opposite.
According to a study published in Journal of Psychiatric Researchcountries with tougher confinement rules had less internet searches related to mental illness during the pandemic.
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In 2020, each country dealt in a way to contain the transmission of the coronavirus. In some places, people were encouraged to stay at home, schools were closed and businesses were closed.
This movement made the internet the main source of information for those who were afraid to even seek medical help. The study, therefore, shows what Google searches can reveal about the mental health of populations in different countries, based on the degree of confinement of each location.
Google search analysis
Data from nine countries were used: Hungary, India, South Africa, Iran, Italy, Paraguay, Spain, Serbia and Turkey. The search terms analyzed were “anxiety”, “depression”, “suicide” and “mental health”. Data were collected over 5 years of searches.
The researchers also used information on how each country reacted to the lockdown measures to contain Covid-19, compiled from the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker. In addition to data on safety measures, the number of Covid-19 deaths in each country was also assessed.
Results showed that, overall, duration, strictness, and blocking policies were associated with lower Google search volume for mental health-related terms.
There are several nuances that point to this relationship. The word “anxiety,” for example, was an increasingly searched term as Covid-19 cases surged before lockdowns were put in place. The term “depression” was searched less in countries with stricter lockdown policies.
These relationships were not only general, but also when analyzing countries with specific policies. “Anxiety” was Googled less and less in places that imposed stricter lockdowns, and “depression” had lower search volume in countries where public events were cancelled. On the other hand, the term “depression” was searched for more often in countries that had policies that required school closures.
“In summary, this study provides further evidence demonstrating the potential of Google Trends, so that the tool can be leveraged as a data source to understand how populations in different parts of the world may be affected by public health measures (including lockdowns) that are implemented. in response to a global health crisis,” the researchers wrote.
“Our findings could be used alongside other evidence (eg, mental health surveillance studies) to develop containment strategies sensitive to the mental health needs of people living in different parts of the world during future public health crises.” , concludes the study.
Despite the study’s relevance to better understanding how lockdown policies have affected global population mental health surveys, there are still some limitations to be noted, the researchers say.
One is that Google Trends doesn’t explain why people were searching for these terms, which makes it difficult to tell whether they were actually having these symptoms or doing searches for another reason. In addition, terms have been translated to the most popular equivalent word in each country, meaning that people could be searching for the same topic but using a synonym and were not counted in the search.
“Additional research is needed to build on the findings of this study, such as whether these associations change with vaccination rates or the rise of new SARS-CoV-2 variants,” the authors noted.
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