Mental health indicators
depression, Anxiety Disorder-2, anxiety
In the pre-COVID-19 period, depression and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) [In the COVID-19 period, depression and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), a four-item scale comprised of the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) for depression and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2) scale [We directly examined three mental health indicators that were similarly measured in both studies: loss of interest in things, hopelessness about the future, and uncontrolled worrying. Specifically, we compared the prevalence of people reporting having experienced these three problems ‘a lot’ or an ‘extreme amount’ in the last 2 weeks, where ‘a lot’ includes anyone who responded ‘Quite a bit’ or ‘More than half the days’ (second highest frequency responses on HSCL-25 and PHQ-4, respectively) and an ‘extreme amount’ includes anyone who responded ‘Extremely’ or ‘Nearly every day’ (highest frequency responses on HSCL-25 and PHQ-4, respectively) in the periods before and during COVID-19, respectively. We also compared the prevalence of depression and anxiety overall, as classified per each scale’s optimal cutpoint.