MedPage Today September 2, 2020
More U.S. adults are experiencing depressive symptoms now than they were pre-pandemic, and their severity has increased, according to survey data.
In a survey of 1,441 adults conducted in the first half of April, the prevalence of depressive symptoms was more than threefold higher than it was in the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), at 27.8% versus 8.5%, reported Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, of Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues.
Compared with the 2017-2018 data, a higher proportion of respondents in this year’s survey said they had experienced mild (24.6% vs 16.2%), moderate (14.8% vs 5.7%), or severe depressive symptoms (5.1% vs 0.7%) in the past 2 weeks, the team wrote in JAMA Network Open.
...