ABSTRACT
Introduction: During the covid-19 pandemic, mental health services were unable to cope with the high demand from the population, so many people chose to search the Internet for information that could help them cope with the psychological process they were experiencing at the time. The aim of this study was to characterize the global search trend for the term «psychiatry¼ in the context of covid-19 using Google Trends and Our World in Data. Methods: Descriptive-cross-sectional study on global search trends for Psychiatry in the context of covid-19 under the terms «psychiatry¼, «depression¼, «anxiety¼, «stress¼, «insomnia¼ and «suicide¼ in the category of health, this was conducted over the period 2020-2021 and time graphs were generated. Results: The term «psychiatry¼ remained at a consistently high relative search volume (between 60 and 90), with a significant and gradual search in the month of April. The relative search volume for «depression¼, «anxiety¼ and «stress¼ remained constant with some non-significant fluctuations over the period 2020-2021. The term «insomnia¼ was predominant between January and June 2020, gradually declining in April and remaining constant until October 2021. Finally, the term «suicide¼ had a fluctuating RBV between 60 and 100 during this period. Conclusions: During the study period, the topics related to mental health and the speciality of psychiatry remained constant, with some fluctuating, but not outstanding variations.
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, university students have adopted measures that completely transformed their educational environment, and this has generated an increase in psychological stress. The present study aimed to identify the factors associated with anxiety, depression, and stress in students at a university in Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We conducted a cross-sectional analytical study in students in Lima, Peru. The DASS-21 scale was used to measure levels of depression, anxiety, and stress and associate it with socio-educational and COVID-19-related variables using generalized linear models with Poisson distribution, log link, and robust variance. Of 400 students surveyed, 19.2%, 23.2% and 17.2% of students presented depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively. The frequency of depression (PR = 0.91, 95%CI: 0.84-0.99), anxiety (PR = 0.90, 95%CI: 0.83-0.99) and stress (PR = 0.92, 95%CI: 0.86-0.99) was lower in women. The students of the engineering and business faculty presented a higher frequency of anxiety (PR = 1.11, 95%CI: 1.00-1.22). There was a greater frequency of presenting anxiety, depression and stress in students who worked in a different area of health or did not work. Our results suggest the importance of promoting mental health awareness campaigns in university students due to the constant academic load they have.
