The MHCOVID project: Corona and mental health

03.02.2021 - A global review aims to summarize and make available evidence on the psychological effects of the COVID19 pandemic using an innovative approach, described in the newly released project website.

Under the leadership of Prof. Georgia Salanti from the University of Bern (ISPM) and Prof. Stefan Leucht from the Technical University of Munich, a so-called «living» evidence synthesis project (MHCOVID: Mental Health during the COVID-19 pandemic) is being undertaken.

In order to keep up with the mass of newly published studies innovative crowdsourcing approach is taken: 80 scientists from all continents work together on a voluntary basis via a web-based system to search for suitable studies and process the data. With the help of an algorithm, the available evidence will then be automatically synthesized on a weekly basis and published on the project's homepage. MHCOVID aims to shed light on the complex relationships between the prevalence of COVID-19 in a given country, the strength of the pandemic containment measures, and the prevalence of mental illness before and during the pandemic, thus helping those responsible to make health policy decisions based on the most up-to-date evidence.

For more information on the project's objectives and methodology and for volunteering to work in the screening of articles, visit the project's website, where the results will also be published. Or, you can follow us on twitter @MH_COVID. The project is financially supported by the Suisse National Science Foundation (grant no.: 198418). Thomy Tonia and Nicola Low from ISPM are part of the MHCOVID working group and Diana Buitrago, Andreas Haas and Matthias Egger also contribute to the various methodological and applied aspects of the project.