Prevalence of anxiety, depression in U.S. adults elevated in first year of pandemic

Prevalence of clinically significant anxiety and depression among adults in the United States increased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with prior years, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.

“Concerns about adverse mental health effects of COVID-19 have been raised since the beginning of the pandemic,” Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, of the department of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues wrote. “Many empirical papers subsequently investigated the association of the pandemic with mental health, and most concluded that the pandemic cause dramatic increases in anxiety and depression.”
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