The global prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, and, insomnia and its changes among health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid systematic review and meta-analysis

• Main Authors: Sultan Mahmud, Sorif Hossain, Abdul Muyeed, Md Mynul Islam, Md. Mohsin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-07-01
• Series: Heliyon
• Subjects: COVID-19; Depression; Anxiety; Stress; Insomnia; Meta-analysis
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844021014961

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the health professionals who are at the frontline of this crisis have been facing extreme psychological disorders. This research aims to provide an overall scenario of the prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, as well as insomnia and to inspect the changes in these prevalence over time by analyzing the existing evidence during this COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A systematic search was performed on March 30, 2021, in PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar databases, and Web of Science. To assess the heterogeneity, Q-test, I2 statistics, and Meta regression and to search for the publication bias, Eggers's test and funnel plot were used. The random-effect model and subgroup analysis were performed due to the significant heterogeneity. Results: Among eighty-three eligible studies in the final synthesis, 69 studies (n = 144649) assessed the depression prevalence of 37.12% (95% CI: 31.80–42.43), 75 studies (n = 147435) reported the anxiety prevalence of 41.42% (95% CI: 36.17–46.54), 41 studies (n = 82783) assessed the stress prevalence of 44.86% (95% CI: 36.98–52.74), 21 studies (n = 33370) enunciated the insomnia prevalence of 43.76% (95% CI: 35.83–51.68). The severity of the mental health problems among health professionals increased over the time during January 2020 to September 2020. Limitations: A significant level of heterogeneity was found among psychological measurement tools and across studies. Conclusions: Therefore, it is an emergency to develop psychological interventions that can protect the mental health of vulnerable groups like health professionals.