The psychological states of people after Wuhan eased the lockdown

PLoS One. 2020 Nov 12;15(11):e0241173. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241173. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

It has been two months since Wuhan eased the lockdown and the people of Wuhan have been under great pressure during COVID-19. The psychological status among healthcare workers and residents were barely know due to the lack of research after Wuhan eased of the lockdown. The purpose of this study was to assess people's mental health and the changes after Wuhan eased the lockdown. A cross-sectional online study among citizens in Wuhan was conducted. Among 1417 participants, 387(27.0%) were frontline healthcare workers and 1035(73.0%) were residents from the general public. Their COVID-19 psychological status was evaluated using Patient Health Questionnaire-9(PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7), and the PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C). Results show that 16.1%,22.3% and 17.2% healthcare workers and 21.2%, 16.7% and 17.2% general public had symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD ranging from moderate to severe. Anxiety levels were not significantly different between healthcare workers and the general public. The decreased income and the frequent social media exposure are the risk factors for general public. Compared to the early COVID-19 epidemic period, the proportion of anxiety and depression among both the general public and health workers decreased after Wuhan eased the lockdown. Our finding can be used to help the government of Wuhan to develop psychological interventions to improve the mental health of the population and work as a reference of public health guidelines for other cities with severe COVID-19 outbreak.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Anxiety / epidemiology
  • Betacoronavirus
  • COVID-19
  • China
  • Coronavirus Infections / psychology*
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Depression / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Health Personnel / psychology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mental Health*
  • Pandemics
  • Patient Health Questionnaire
  • Pneumonia, Viral / psychology*
  • Psychological Distress*
  • Quarantine / psychology*
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 61772375, 18ZDA325]; Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 2019CFA025]; National Key R&D Program of China(2019YFC010167); and Independent Research Project of School of Information Management Wuhan University(No: 413100032). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.