Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health management: Evidence from individual-level universal insurance claims data

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a prolonged and widespread increase in mental health problems around the world. While receiving diagnosis and treatment plays a critical role in addressing mental health issues, it remains unclear how this process has been affected by the pandemic. Using an individual fixed effects model, this paper studies the effects of the pandemic on mental illness diagnosis and treatment through universal health insurance claims data. We observe a significant rise in mental illness diagnoses during the pandemic, with subjective mental health measures showing a similar negative impact. We find that individuals with pre-existing conditions experienced a decline in follow-up treatments but that there was a significant increase in new diagnoses among those without pre-existing conditions. We observe a particularly pronounced reduction in diagnoses for individuals over 60 but no significant heterogeneous effects by gender or individual income.