Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34021112›Full record

ArticleTranslational psychiatry2021

Obsessive-compulsive symptoms and information seeking during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alisa M Loosen, Vasilisa Skvortsova, Tobias U Hauser

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Translational psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
30citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
8.6field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
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  4. Review
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  7. Article
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  10. Individual differences in information demand have a low dimensional structure predicted by some curiosity traits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  11. Article
  12. "How" web searches change under stress.Scientific reports · 2024
    Article
  13. Observational
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.

Alisa M LoosenMax Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK. a.loosen.17@ucl.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-4295-3817
Vasilisa SkvortsovaMax Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK.
Tobias U HauserMax Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK. t.hauser@ucl.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-7997-8137
Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging · GB

Funding

European Research CouncilWellcome Trust 211155/Z/18/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Increased mental-health symptoms as a reaction to stressful life events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, are common. Critically, successful adaptation helps to reduce such symptoms to baseline, preventing long-term psychiatric disorders. It is thus important to understand whether and which psychiatric symptoms show transient elevations, and which persist long-term and become chronically heightened. At particular risk for the latter trajectory are symptom dimensions directly affected by the pandemic, such as obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. In this longitudinal large-scale study (N = 406), we assessed how OC, anxiety and depression symptoms changed throughout the first pandemic wave in a sample of the general UK public. We further examined how these symptoms affected pandemic-related information seeking and adherence to governmental guidelines. We show that scores in all psychiatric domains were initially elevated, but showed distinct longitudinal change patterns. Depression scores decreased, and anxiety plateaued during the first pandemic wave, while OC symptoms further increased, even after the ease of Covid-19 restrictions. These OC symptoms were directly linked to Covid-related information seeking, which gave rise to higher adherence to government guidelines. This increase of OC symptoms in this non-clinical sample shows that the domain is disproportionately affected by the pandemic. We discuss the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on public mental health, which calls for continued close observation of symptom development.

Indexed as

COVID-19Obsessive-Compulsive DisorderAnxietyHumansInformation Seeking BehaviorPandemicsSARS-CoV-2

Identifiers

PMID34021112
PMCPMC8138954
OpenAlexW3163440385

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.