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Review
. 2022 Jul;17(4):915-936.
doi: 10.1177/17456916211029964. Epub 2022 Jan 19.

Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward

Lara B Aknin  1 , Jan-Emmanuel De Neve  2 , Elizabeth W Dunn  3 , Daisy E Fancourt  4 , Elkhonon Goldberg  5 , John F Helliwell  6 , Sarah P Jones  7 , Elie Karam  8 , Richard Layard  9 , Sonja Lyubomirsky  10 , Andrew Rzepa  11 , Shekhar Saxena  12 , Emily M Thornton  1 , Tyler J VanderWeele  13 , Ashley V Whillans  14 , Jamil Zaki  15 , Ozge Karadag  16 , Yanis Ben Amor  16
Affiliations
Review

Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward

Lara B Aknin et al. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad ways, causing an explosion of research that is broad in scope, varied in methods, and challenging to consolidate. Because policy and practice aimed at helping people live healthier and happier lives requires insight from robust patterns of evidence, this article provides a rapid and thorough summary of high-quality studies available through early 2021 examining the mental-health consequences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our review of the evidence indicates that anxiety, depression, and distress increased in the early months of the pandemic. Meanwhile, suicide rates, life satisfaction, and loneliness remained largely stable throughout the first year of the pandemic. In response to these insights, we present seven recommendations (one urgent, two short-term, and four ongoing) to support mental health during the pandemic and beyond.

Keywords: COVID-19; loneliness; mental health; psychological distress; self-harm; social connection; subjective well-being; suicide.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Stressors imposed on individuals by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each circle represents a layer of potential stress during the COVID-19 pandemic that may accumulate to undermine mental health.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
The mental-health continuum.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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