by Angelica Bourgeault; Brett Thombs | Oct 07, 2020

The SPIN Team has published results from a study that compares symptoms of anxiety among 435 participants in the ongoing SPIN Cohort. They found that, on average, anxiety symptoms during April 2020 were substantially higher than prior to COVID-19, whereas depressive symptom change was negligible. Overall, anxiety increased by a clinically meaningful amount for 51% of participants. Anxiety symptoms increased most for participants from the United Kingdom and United States, with lower increases for Canada and France. Greater anxiety increases also appeared to be associated with younger age, shorter time since diagnosis, and less adequate financial resources and non-employment.

This is the first study to report mental health symptom changes during COVID-19 in a vulnerable population with a pre-existing medical condition and the first to compare symptom changes across countries. Find out more about our findings in our new research infographic below. Study results are available free-of-charge here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399920308242.

More studies on the COVID-19 experiences of people with scleroderma are on their way. A big thanks to all participants in the SPIN COVID-19 Cohort who make this work possible! Thanks for taking the time to complete questionnaires and thanks in advance for sticking with it as the pandemic situation continues!


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