No real mental health crisis from pandemic

[Nimbostratus100]

Confirmed by BMJ, after surveys across high income countries across Europe and ASia

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest, despite a myriad of anecdotal accounts on MN and in some other places.

I know I asked many hundreds of children myself, and found more enjoyed and benefited from lockdown than suffered because of it, and mental health charities knew at the time that suicide rates were falling, which has later been confirmed.

Some people's mental health deteriorated in the lockdowns. Some people's improved. Overall, there was a small rise in mild/moderate mental health problems being reported, while suicides decreased.

Can we stop blaming the pandemic and lockdown for poor mental health across the board now, but particularly in schools.

Question is, what would it be like if we took different courses of action?

I don't think the government response was perfect, far from it.

But they had really difficult choices to make, all of which had disadvantages and all of which would have put someone somewhere in a terrible position. We knew that from the get go.

I think the PP had a good point, that we feel that care homes weren't sufficiently protected, but we also resent the measures that were put in place actually to protect care homes. Sounds like any course of action would have been lose lose with that.

It is interesting that the Telegraph, of all papers, has been leading with the Lockdown Diaries.

I can't decide whether they are trying to distract from the general failings of the Tories by scapegoating Hancock and pals, or whether they are tryong to distract from the shitshow of Brexit by suggesting all our problems are because of lockdown. And mask wearing, of course.

Given all the bullshit from anti vaxxers and anti lockdown groups, perhaps just to discuss the facts?

There has been so much conspiracy bullshit spread about COVID.

The fact is the study doesn’t include children and women were impacted.

So the op was misleading

Loving the 'well they never asked me, so how can it be accurate?' responses.

Aye, any dataset which doesn't include 8 billion individual responses is worthless. 🙄

What does this have to do with conspiracy theories and anti vaxx?

Some cmht staff did have patients best interests at heart some didn't and wanted the office type role with WFH and telephone appointments minimal patient contact. Some cmht staff left and went to the wards as they thought the job had changed.

I find the nurses who had done ward work were more reluctant about the move to WFH and limited appointments the ones who had only done community were quite happy with less patient contact.

Same here with my 10yo DS. During the pandemic, he developed OCD which was relatively manageable when he was first referred to CAMHS, but after a few more months on the waiting list, it has completely taken over his life (and ours). He starts CBT next week, at long last. The psychologist who diagnosed him said the service had been snowed under since the pandemic. Again 'just' anecdotal, but of great significance to our family.

No one asked me. Or anyone I know.

Personally I struggled during lockdown one, and then went pretty fucking mental when lockdown two was announced.

I became suicidal in lockdown. I found it one of the most awful times in my life. I feel the sacrifice I made far outweighed what would have happened if my family had had covid. It was truly awful for myself and my family.

However, given how many people seemed to support lockdown (and enjoy the first summer lockdown) it doesn't surprise me that I'm in the minority

I've known a few. I'm so sorry and hope you're doing well now.

Ditto. The old me is dead, that's for sure.

Interesting observations here

twitter.com/snj_1970/status/1633816785538482178

Except it's not the biggest and most robust accurate picture of reality - because it is barely looking beyond 2020, and because the participant bases of the underlying studies are fairly homogenous, as is typically - and understandably - the case in social sciences research. And the authors point both of these things out, because that is what researchers do.

I mean... it is a useful study as one of thousands of studies that have come out of the pandemic, with many more to come in the coming years, but I suspect the researchers themselves would be surprised to hear it called a big and robust accurate picture of reality.

The headline is misleading. The studies were early on in pandemic and women weee more impacted, plus other constraints to data

But this I feel the sacrifice I made far outweighed what would have happened if my family had had covid. It was truly awful for myself and my family.

Would be true of many people, the risk was generally low but heightened for lockdowns, sorry it was so bad for your family. It’s tough to take

Which poster?

I'm quite scared that governments will use this research to impose more panic lockdowns in the future.

They didn’t do age either or look at social economic and diversity groups such as LGBT, neurodiversity, the disabled etc How on earth could it have not impacted mental health for many. It’s been widely reported that schools and Cahms are struggling to cope with a huge rise in mental health struggles post Covid. It’s just utter garbage. I notice several of the pieces of research it was drawn from were Chinese. Aside from it being ridiculous I do wonder if there is a propaganda element to it too.

It is a meta analysis

@Nimbostratus100 you keep repeating this despite rather a lot of people pointing out the impossibility of conflating your view that's theres "no real mental health crisis from the pandemic" with a meta analysis of studies from 2020 with all the particular inclusion/exclusion criteria for these studies that people have also pointed out numerous times? how does a meta analysis of studies from only the early part of the pandemic prove what happened to peoples mental health in 2021,2022, 2023? If you are so keen on holding onto your view, it may help to explain yourself a bit more?

A cherry picked meta as well, but then that's often the case. As they say, if you torture the data long enough, it will tell you what you want to hear.

out of interest, what do you think has caused "poor mental health across the board"? I realise you might not want to say but just thought I'd ask.

The bunch of cherries was 94,411 in size. It also states "Substantial heterogeneity and risk of bias were present across analyses", and "The authors will update the results of this systematic review as more evidence accrues"

I don't think the study should be dismissed.

This study says nothing about mental health ‘post Covid’ so why are you using CAMHS referral rates for a different time period to criticise a study looking only at mental health during the onset of the pandemic?

Rubbish. Ask any teacher.

Lots of people enjoyed the lockdowns.

Our family of 4 for example, we had just moved into a new larger house with garden, the kids are twins and really like playing with eachother, DH and I had a secure job that can be done from home, lots of parks nearby for our daily walks, etc.
I even said to DH I would quite like having a lockdown week every other month or something.

Definitely not saying this is what most people feel, or that we are not very lucky! But it is also wrong to say nobody liked the lockdowns / came the other way in a better place.

I'm not dismissing it but it says itself that it looked at middle to high income, mostly in Asian countries.