Using social media data to assess the impact of COVID-19 on mental health in China

Background. The outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 not only caused an adverse impact on physical health but also brought about mental health problems among the public.Methods. To assess the causal impact of COVID-19 on psychological changes in China, we constructed a city-level panel data set based on the expressed sentiment in the contents of 13 million geotagged tweets on Sina Weibo, the Chinese largest microblog platform.Results. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we found a significant deterioration in mental health status after the occurrence of COVID-19. We also observed that this psychological effect faded out over time during our study period and was more pronounced among women, teenagers and older adults. The mental health impact was more likely to be observed in cities with low levels of initial mental health status, economic development, medical resources, and social security.Conclusions. Our findings may assist the understanding of COVID-19’s mental health impact and yield useful insights on how to make effective psychological interventions in this kind of sudden public health event.

Generalities About Caring Mental Illness and Impact on Family Caregivers in Chinese Community: A Ten Years Narrative Review Study

Background: Worldwide, the burden of mental health is increasing day by day. The WHO alerts countries that diseases caused by mental health will occupy the second rank on the rest of non-communicable diseases. The increase of mental diseases is always associated with the increase of multiple challenges in primary caregivers who are mostly family members of the patient. China is one of nations with high prevalence of mental health disorders. Like many other countries caregiving mental health in china would have challenges and opportunities. This study aimed to narratively combine studies on family caregivers of psychiatric illness in China thereby making an objective conclusion Methods: A matrix method was narratively used in this study. Studies conducted in Chinese community which includes studies in main land China, Hong Kong and Taiwan conducted in the period between 2008-2019 were considered. 47 studies were considered for analysis and five main themes were found for consideration. Results: The findings in this study are summarized in the following themes 1. High burden and burnout of care and influencing factors, 2. The high stigma of caregivers 3. The low quality of life of caregivers 4. the social support. 5. Care and intervention for caregivers of psychiatric disorders. Conclusion: caregivers of psychiatric illness in Chinese community face challenges that are in some cases different to the rest of the world however there are many similarities with the rest of the world that are found. To overcome these challenges, all parties are called to play its assigned role in the eradication of these challenges. There is a need of strengthening the available opportunities and the common understanding of the problem is required in Chinese community.

Progress on Relationship between Natural Environment and Mental Health in China

Natural environment has a positive effect on individual mental health, which can be proved by many studies, both domestic and overseas. At present, some sunrise industries such as forest healthcare and natural tourism are booming in China. However, academically speaking, there’s still a lack of systematic summary of researches on the relationship between natural environment and mental health in China, as well as a lack of comparison with foreign research achievements, which hinders the further development of the field to some extent in China. Therefore, this paper reviews the literature systematically by using the database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), in order to understand the research status in China and find out its gap with foreign studies. The results show that the study in this area in China can be divided into three stages, namely the embryonic stage (prior to 2000), the start-up stage (2001–2008) and the stage of initial development (since 2009); disciplines involved in the study mainly cover forestry, agriculture, psychology, medicine, sports science, tourism, ecology, education and geography. In general, the research in China concentrates on four topics: ecological psychology, the impact of natural ecological environment on mental health, the impact of artificial ecological environment on mental health, as well as the impact of natural tourism on mental health. Based on the findings, a future study framework and some main study lines are suggested: firstly, a systematic study on the relationship between natural environment and mental health in other countries should be conducted; secondly, factors affecting mental health in natural environment should be identified; thirdly, an evaluation system of psychological effect of natural environment should be established; finally, the utilization modes and influencing mechanism of natural environment should be explored.