A new international study led by Canadian researchers suggests humanity has, for the most part, ‘made the best of a difficult situation’
Early on in the pandemic, the predictions were grim. Scientific papers warned of a “mental health tsunami.” Experts worried about escalating anxiety and depression.
“There was such a drumbeat that everyone was having mental health problems,” says Brett Thombs, a professor in the faculty of medicine at McGill University and the Chair of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Care. “The data doesn’t show that. It is really a cautionary note that evidence is important.”
The paper also includes a longitudinal study, co-authored by Dr. Thombs and Dr. Rice, which tracked 435 patients with scleroderma, an often painful, potentially debilitating, autoimmune disease that affects the skin and internal organs. It found that while anxiety jumped in the early months, mental health scores returned to baseline as the pandemic progressed. It’s unlikely, says Dr. Rice, that the general public would fare worse than a vulnerable group.
Yet even the authors of the paper report being surprised by the results. “It made logical sense for a big trauma to impact society’s mood in a negative way,” says Dr. Rice. The study is a caution against jumping to negative conclusions before the evidence is clear. Predicting the population will do poorly, she points out, doesn’t inspire perseverance.
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