SynthesisPsychological medicine2021
The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns: a review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments.
Synthesis in Psychological medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 413 papers, 13 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
413 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 822 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures on self-harming and suicidal behaviors in adolescents: A comprehensive meta-analysis.Suicide & life-threatening behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Couples and parenting dynamics during Covid-19 pandemic: A systematic review of the literature.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Changes in the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the pandemic: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.BMJ mental health · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Daily routine disruptions and psychiatric symptoms amid COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of data from 0.9 million individuals in 32 countries.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Changes in anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic in the European population: A meta-analysis of changes and associations with restriction policies.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Suicide Following the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak: Variation Across Place, Over Time, and Across Sociodemographic Groups. A Systematic Integrative Review.Current psychiatry reports · 2023Pooled it
- COVID-19 and common mental health symptoms in the early phase of the pandemic: An umbrella review of the evidence.PLoS medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Suicide before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- The prevalence and risk factors of mental problems in medical students during COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Pooled it
- Mental health and quality of life in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review of longitudinal studies.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Changes in sleep quality and sleep disturbances in the general population from before to during the COVID-19 lockdown: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Article
- Mobility Patterns and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Observational Study Using Smartphone Mobility Data.JMIR formative research · 2026Observational
- Rapid Epidemiological Data Collection on Social Media for COVID-19: Comparative Study Between Online Surveys and Conventional Cohorts.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Observational
- P5 Mental Health Platform: A Digital Solution to Monitor Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in the General Portuguese Population.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Simulating COVID-19 lockdowns' impact on depressive symptoms in the northern Netherlands.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Dynamic Benefits of Finding the Silver Lining: Secondary Control as a Buffer Against Declines in Well-Being During COVID-19.Motivation and emotion · 2026Article
- Psychological resilience trajectories after the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of lifestyle and psychosocial factors in a cohort at increased alzheimer's disease risk.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
353 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have had profound effects on everyday life worldwide, but their effect on mental health remains unclear because available meta-analyses and reviews rely mostly on cross-sectional studies. We conducted a rapid review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments investigating the relationship between COVID-19 lockdowns and mental health. A total of 25 studies involving 72 004 participants and 58 effect sizes were analyzed. Using a random effects model, we found that lockdowns had small effects on mental health symptoms, g = 0.17, s.e. = 0.05, 95% CI (0.06-0.24), p = 0.001, but the effects on positive psychological functioning, g = -0.12, s.e. = 0.11, 95% CI (-0.33 to 0.09), p = 0.27, were not significant. Multivariate analysis of effect sizes revealed significant and relatively small effect sizes for anxiety and depression, while those for social support, loneliness, general distress, negative affect, and suicide risk were not significant. The results indicated substantial heterogeneity among studies, but meta-regression analyses found no significant moderation effects for mean age, gender, continent, COVID-19 death rate, days of lockdown, publication status or study design. The psychological impact of COVID-19 lockdowns is small in magnitude and highly heterogeneous, suggesting that lockdowns do not have uniformly detrimental effects on mental health and that most people are psychologically resilient to their effects.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.