JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

With increasing outbreaks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide, quarantine strategies have been implemented in many countries including China. Psychological impacts of large scale, long-term quarantine are critical to assess in a timely manner.

Objective:

To investigate mental health disorders and risk factors for people undergoing mass home- and community-based quarantine, especially in vulnerable populations such as people living with cancer or other chronic diseases.

Methods:

Participants aged 18 or above were recruited through iterative sampling process via WeChat from February 26-29, 2020 during the community- or home-based quarantine. WeChat is the most widely used social media platform in China with over 1 billion active users worldwide.3 The online survey link was initially and purposely sent to ten participants who were chosen to ensure broad representation of demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level) and chronic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, cancer).

Results:

Out of 2441 questionnaires collected, 2331 (95.5%) were valid using a quality-control question. Mean age among participants was 34.4 (11.1) years, 56.1% were female, 60.0% were married, 73.7% had a bachelor’s degree or above, 44.7% had been quarantined for over 3 weeks, 54.5% went out no more than once a week. About one third (32.7%) of the participants experienced elevated anxiety or depressive symptoms.

Conclusions:

Results of this study highlight an urgent need for psychological support and counseling for populations at high-risk for elevated anxiety and depressive symptoms during the outbreaks of COVID-19 and during any quarantine implementation.