key: cord-0890789-vges0bha authors: Ueda, Michiko; Stickley, Andrew; Sueki, Hajime; Matsubayashi, Tetsuya title: Mental Health Status of the General Population in Japan during the COVID‐19 Pandemic date: 2020-07-01 journal: Psychiatry Clin Neurosci DOI: 10.1111/pcn.13105 sha: c1adbb44a0f81aaf832fe8b6715ddff860fb678b doc_id: 890789 cord_uid: vges0bha nan From late December 2019 a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spread rapidly to countries throughout the world. In the absence of a vaccine, and given the high degree of transmissibility and potential lethality of COVID-19, social and physical distancing, including reducing/avoiding crowding, the closure of non-essential businesses/services, stayat-home orders, and local/national movement restrictions, have been the main public health measures adopted to mitigate the transmission/detrimental effects of the virus. 1 Despite the potential benefits of such measures, they might also have negative short-and long-term consequences for mental health. 2 For example, financial loss and the socioeconomic distress that can result from quarantine may underpin the emergence of psychological disorders. 3 Against this backdrop, we examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of a national sample of the Japanese population (see Appendix S1 for a description of the situation in Japan). We administered two rounds of an online survey of the Japanese population between The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) 4 was used to measure depressive symptoms, while the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) 5 was used to measure anxiety symptoms (Appendix S2). We also obtained information on the age, sex, education, prefectural area of residence, employment status, household income, and household financial situation of the respondents. For the analysis we first calculated the prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms for each of the demographic and economic groups. Then logistic regression models were estimated with either the GAD-7 or PHQ-9 categories as the outcome and all the respondents' characteristics as the regressors. The descriptive statistics of the sample stratified by the mental health variables are presented in online Table S1 , while details of the mental health scores are presented in Appendix S3. In fully adjusted logistic regression models, being young or middle aged compared to older aged (≥60 years), having a worse household financial situation compared to the previous year and being unemployed, laid off or on leave were associated with significantly increased odds for both depressive and anxiety symptoms. Being a part-time or temporary worker was associated with higher odds for depression while the association with anxiety was of borderline statistical significance ( Figures S1 and S2 ). Our results suggest that the mental health condition of some segments of the Japanese population may be particularly vulnerable during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. In particular, individuals who are in an economically vulnerable situation, i.e. those who were not currently working or who were employed as part-time or temporary contract-based workers, reported This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. worse mental health. This is consistent with the notion that the effects of a faltering economy and reduction in business activities caused by COVID-19 are first and foremost likely to detrimentally affect workers without employment/stable employment. Similarly, individuals who felt that their financial position had deteriorated in the past year also had greater odds for depression and anxiety. In addition, the mental health of young and middle-aged individuals was significantly poorer than that of older individuals. We can only speculate why the current crisis may be having an especially detrimental impact on the mental health of the workingage population. Besides financial worries, it is also possible for example, that COVID-19 may be currently giving rise to other stressors in younger age groups that might also impact their mental health -such as the need for parents to both telework from home while at the same time homeschool their children. Our findings suggest that monitoring the mental health of younger and economically vulnerable individuals may be especially important moving forward. In addition, they also indicate that the general public's mental health during the pandemic might not only be affected by the direct health consequences of COVID-19, but also by the economic ramifications of the pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report -72 The mental health consequences of COVID-19 and physical distancing: the need for prevention and early intervention The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence and the Patient Health Questionnaire Primary Care Study Group. Validation and utility of a self-report version of PRIME-MD: the PHQ Primary Care Study A brief measure for assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder: the GAD-7 This work was financially supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant Number 20H01584. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. The authors declare no conflict of interest.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.