To the Editor,
Boden and colleagues recent paper on the mental scars inflicted by the novel coronavirus and comparing it with the earlier coronavirus pandemics such as MERS and SARS is a major step in addressing the torn social fabric and the subsequent mental injury caused by the viral family [1]. The pandemic has led to a shadow mental health pandemic caused by our collective trauma. This study is valuable in furthering our understanding, regarding the magnitude and the wide impact of mental health issues caused by this pandemic.
Nonetheless, we are concerned about the methodology deployed by the authors that may dampen the robustness of this study. Boden and colleagues state that they planned on conducting a meta-regression, including a random summary effect, as implemented by a restricted likelihood method. In the actual study, however, they instead conduct a meta-regression including a dummy-coded disorder as a fixed effect moderator to obtain the summary prevalence of disorder across populations. Furthermore, in the protocol, the authors state that the profile plots indicated that all variance components were statistically identifiable. This difference in approach between stated methodology and implemented method requires clarification.
Additionally, in the protocol, the authors state that they were “estimating the mental health impact of COVID-19 on United States Populations”, but in the final study, they estimated the prevalence in Canada, China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Italy, Singapore, India and United States. This difference in stated objective and conducted analysis also requires to be clarified.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors confirmed that they have no competing interests.
Funding
Any external source did not fund this study.
Authors' contributions
RJ predominantly conceived this review and led the development of the letter to the editor. RJ, and CK wrote the first draft of the letter, and GKM, RS and SS critically revised and edited successive drafts of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
References
- 1.Boden M., Cohen N., Froelich J.M., Hoggatt K.J., Magid H.S.A., Mushiana S.S. Mental disorder prevalence among populations impacted by coronavirus pandemics: a multilevel meta-analytic study of COVID-19, MERS & SARS. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2021;70:124–133. doi: 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2021.03.006. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Data Availability Statement
Not applicable.
No data was used for the research described in the article.