COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health: Prevalence and Correlates of New-Onset Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in a Canadian Province
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on March 11, 2020. Subsequently, an intensive public health campaign recommending regular hand washing, physical distancing, and facemask use evolved as a global strategy to limit viral transmission. OBJECTIVE Objective: This study investigates the prevalence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms at an early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. METHODS Methods: This a population-based, cross-sectional online survey of Canadians aged 18 years and older. We used the contamination and cleanliness subscale of the Brief Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (BOCS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), likely Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) with the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale, and likely Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scale to investigate prevalence of OCD symptoms and their correlation to perceived stress, anxiety, and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS Results: 32,805 individuals who subscribed for supportive text messages with Text4Hope were invited to complete an online survey; 6,041 responded with a mean age of 42 years (age range 11-88 years) and a response rate of 18.4%. Overall, 60.3% of respondents, reported onset of obsessions related to contamination with dirt, germs, or viruses and while 53.8% had compulsions to wash hands during the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents who were worried about dirt, germs, and viruses only since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly more likely to have moderate/high stress (z=6.4, p<0.001), likely GAD (z=6.0, p<0.001), and likely MDD (z=2.7, p<0.01) compared to respondents who have never been worried about dirt, germs, and viruses. Similarly, respondents who engage in compulsive hand washing were significantly more likely to have moderate/high stress (z=4.6, p<0.001) and likely GAD (z=4.6 p<0.001) but not likely MDD (z=1.4, p=0.16) compared to respondents who have never engaged in compulsive hand washing. CONCLUSIONS Conclusion: Prevalence of OCD symptoms increased during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a rate significantly higher than pre-pandemic rates reported for the sample population. Presenting with OCD symptoms during the pandemic significantly increases the likelihood for respondents to present with elevated stress levels, likely GAD and likely MDD. CLINICALTRIAL
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".