Mass quarantine and mental health during COVID-19: A meta-analysis

Abstract

To reveal the complex relationships between quarantine and mental health during COVID-19, a meta-analysis was conducted involving 34 articles and a total sample size of 134,061. As the relationship between quarantine and mental health was found to be affected by the sampling objects and national factors, a random-effects model was applied for the meta-analysis. First, a heterogeneity test and sensitivity analysis were conducted to determine whether there was heterogeneity in the samples, after which a funnel chart, Rosenthal's Classic Fail-safe N test and Egger's test were applied to further determine whether there was publication bias in the included samples. Finally, a sub-group test was used to explore whether the sampling group and the country of origin had a moderating effect on the relationship between quarantine and mental health, which revealed that the relationship between quarantine and mental health was regulated and influenced by the sampled objects but was not affected by the country categories. The results indicated that: COVID-19 quarantine had varying impacts on individual anxiety, depression, and psychological stress; different groups had different regulatory effects on the relationship between quarantine and mental health; and country of origin had no moderating effect on quarantine and psychology.

Background: COVID-19 is the most important topic in 2020, and mass quarantine is the measures for pandemic prevention and control around the world since 2020. To explore the relationships between mass quarantine and mental health during COVID-19, a meta-analysis was conducted involving 28 articles and a total sample size of 134,061.

Method: As the relationship between mass quarantine and mental health was found to be affected by the sampling objects and national factors, a random-effects model was applied for the meta-analysis. First, a heterogeneity test and sensitivity analysis were conducted to determine whether there was heterogeneity in the samples, after which a funnel chart, Rosenthal's Classic Fail-safe N test and Egger's test were applied to further determine whether there was publication bias in the included samples. Finally, a sub-group test was used to explore whether the sampling group and the country of origin had a moderating effect on the relationship between mass quarantine and mental health.

Results: COVID-19 quarantine had varying impacts on individual anxiety, depression, and psychological stress; different groups had different regulatory effects on the relationship between quarantine and mental health; and country of origin had no moderating effect on quarantine and mental health.

Conclusions: This study employed a meta-analysis to examine the relationships between the COVID-19 pandemic mass quarantine measures and mental health factors such as anxiety, depression and stress, from which it was found that influence of quarantine on anxiety was stronger, the relationship between quarantine and mental health was affected by the sampled object, and there was no significant relationship between quarantine and country of origin in the sample population.

Keywords: COVID-19; Mental health; Meta-analysis; Quarantine.