ArticleJMIR formative research2021
Pandemic Information Dissemination and Its Associations With the Symptoms of Mental Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study.
Article in JMIR formative research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04442360 (The Impact of Information Sources on Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic), which is not on this map. Cited by 5 papers.
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.
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.
The Impact of Information Sources on Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global burden of mental disorders: a counterfactual modeling study from 1990 to 2021.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Trajectories of depression and anxiety in adults with rare disorders across 13 months during the COVID-19 pandemic.Orphanet journal of rare diseases · 2025Article
- Depressive Symptom Change Patterns during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Their Impact on Psychiatric Treatment Seeking: A 24-Month Observational Study of the Adult Population.Depression and anxiety · 2024Observational
- Diagnosis Disclosure and Peer-to-Peer Information Seeking Among COVID-19-Infected Social Media Users: Survey of US-Based Adults.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- [Sources used to obtain information on COVID-19 and its impact on mental health.]Revista espanola de salud publica · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic has added to the mental health strain on individuals and groups across the world in a variety of ways. Viral mitigation protocols and viral spread affect people on all continents every day, but at widely different degrees. To understand more about the mental health consequences of the pandemic, it is important to investigate whether or how people gather pandemic-related information and how obtaining this information differentially affects individuals.
objectiveThis study aimed to investigate whether and to what extent higher levels of COVID-19-related media consumption across information sources are associated with the symptoms of anxiety, health anxiety, and depression, and whether and to what extent using social media and online interactive platforms versus traditional media platforms is associated with the symptoms of anxiety, health anxiety, and depression. Additionally, we aimed to investigate whether and to what extent avoidance of COVID-19-related information is associated with the aforementioned symptoms.
methodsIn a cross-sectional preregistered survey, 4936 participants responded between June 22 and July 13, 2020. Eligible participants were adults currently residing in Norway and were thus subjected to identical viral mitigation protocols. This sample was representative of the Norwegian population after utilizing an iterative raking algorithm to conduct poststratification. As 2 subgroups (transgender and intersex individuals) were too small to be analyzed, the final sample for descriptive statistics and regressions included 4921 participants. Multiple regressions were used to investigate associations between the symptoms of psychopathology and COVID-19-related information dissemination. Part correlations were calculated as measures of the effect size for each predictor variable. Due to the large anticipated sample size, the preregistered criterion for significance was set at P<.01.
resultsThe symptoms of anxiety and health anxiety were significantly associated with obtaining information from newspapers (P<.001), social media (P<.001), and the broader categories of online interactive (P<.001) and traditional media (P<.001). The symptoms of depression were significantly associated with obtaining information from newspapers (P=.003), social media (P=.009), and the broader category of online interactive media (P<.001). Additionally, avoidance of COVID-19-related information showed a significant association in all 3 domains of psychopathological symptoms (anxiety and depression, P<.001; health anxiety, P=.007).
conclusionsThis study found significant associations between the symptoms of psychopathology and the use of media for obtaining information related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Significant findings for obtaining information through newspapers, social media, and online interactive media were seen across all 3 measures of psychopathology. Avoidance of COVID-19-related information and associations with the symptoms of psychopathology emerged as core findings, with generally higher effect sizes compared with information attainment.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04442360; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04442360.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.