Psychological interventions in a pandemic emergency: a systematic review and Meta-analysis of SARS-CoV-2 studies
Open accessAbstract
Background: The study aim was to review the evidence and effectiveness of psychological interventions applied during Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Methods: A literature search was run from April 2020 to April 2021. The inclusion criteria were: (1) RCTs or observational studies; (2) professional health carers and patients who had contracted coronavirus during the pandemic; (3) adults and elderly people with a viral infection diagnosis; (4) suitable measures to assess intervention effectiveness on clinical status and psychological and behavioral aspects. An internal validity assessment was planned using robvis. Data were synthesized according to PICO criteria. Results: A total of 12 studies were selected. Studies measuring mental health outcomes demonstrated the greatest reduction in symptoms, with eight out of the twelve studies demonstrating a reduction in symptoms that reached statistical significance (p < 0.05) and four of the studies reaching a higher significance level of p < 0.01. The type of psychological intervention was predominantly cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). All studies except one was run online. Conclusion: Psychological interventions have a benefit on mental health outcomes, even if performed online. In particular, CBT seems to be the psychological intervention that is used more and also seems to have a larger effect size on the mitigation of mental health symptoms and increasing resilience.
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Results from systematic reviews indicate that psychological interventions could be effective in the management of EDs in the context of COVID-19 conditions.
“Results from these systematic reviews indicate that psychological interventions could be effective in the management of EDs in the context of COVID-19 conditions, however, some needs are not properly addressed.”
From Unified Protocol for the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders in people with post COVID-19 condition: study protocol for a multiple baseline n-of-1 trial (2023) · cites this paper as D’Onofrio et al., 2022
The Discussion (section 4; page unavailable) reports that psychological interventions benefited mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper identifies depression, anxiety and perceived stress as outcomes, but does not establish effectiveness for managing EDs (eating disorders). (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPsychological interventions are available in the context of COVID-19 for the general population, students, professionals, informal caregivers, relatives, and COVID-19 patients.
“Different systematic reviews indicated that psychological interventions are available in the context of COVID-19 for the general population and students (D’Onofrio et al., 2022; Komariah et al., 2022), professionals and informal caregivers (Bertuzzi et al., 2021), relatives (Yue et al., 2020), or even COVID-19 patients (Rahmati and Khalili, 2022).”
From Unified Protocol for the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders in people with post COVID-19 condition: study protocol for a multiple baseline n-of-1 trial (2023) · cites this paper as D’Onofrio et al., 2022
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- Authors
- D’Onofrio, G., Trotta, N., Severo, M., Iuso, S., Ciccone, F., Prencipe, A. M., Nabavi, S. M., De Vincentis, G., & Petito, A.
- Affiliations
- Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (IT)
- University of Foggia (IT)
- Advanced Medical Pharma (BIOTEC), 82100 Benevento, Italy
- Health Department, Fondazione IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, 71013 Foggia, Italy
- Corresponding author
- D’Onofrio, Grazia
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Medicine
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2022-06-04
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 3209
- ISSN
- 2077-0383 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9181132
- OpenAlex
- W4281713719
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Ministero della Salute
- I.R.C.C.S. Research Program
- Ricerca Corrente “Malattie complesse e terapie innovative”
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Keywords
- psychological intervention, COVID-19 pandemic, mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, online therapy, resilience, psychological symptoms, COVID-19 patients, healthcare workers
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