Mental Health Problems and Social Media Exposure During COVID-19 Outbreak
21 Pages Posted: 20 Feb 2020
Junling Gao
Fudan University - Fudan Institute of Health Communication
Pinping Zheng
Fudan University - Fudan Institute of Health Communication
Abstract
Background: Huge citizens expos social media during a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbroke in Wuhan, China. We assess the prevalence of mental health problems and examine their association with social media exposure.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among Chinese citizens aged ≥18 years old during Jan 31 to Feb 2, 2019. Online survey was used to do rapid assessment. Total of 4872 participants from 31 provinces and autonomous regions were involved in the current study. Besides demographics and social media exposure (SME), depression was assessed by The Chinese version of WHO-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5) and anxiety was assessed by Chinese version of generalized anxiety disorder scale (GAD-7). multivariable logistic regressions were used to identify associations between social media exposure with mental health problems after controlling for covariates.
