Media consumption patterns and depressive and anxiety symptoms in the Chinese general population during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Abstract

Background: Examining patterns of media consumption and their associations with mental health outcomes in the general population during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has implications for public mental health in future pandemics.

Aim: To investigate patterns of media consumption and their associations with depressive and anxiety symptoms among adults affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A total of 8473 adults were recruited through snowball sampling for an online cross-sectional survey. The participants were asked to report the three media sources from which they most frequently acquired knowledge about COVID-19 from a checklist of nine media sources. Depression and anxiety were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, respectively. A two-step cluster analysis was performed to identify distinct clusters of consumption of media sources.

Results: Seven clusters were identified. The lowest prevalence of depression and anxiety (29.1% and 22.8%, respectively) was observed in cluster one, which was labeled "television and news portals and clients, minimal social media". The highest prevalence of depression (43.1%) was observed in cluster three, labeled "WeChat, MicroBlog, and news portals, minimal traditional media". The greatest prevalence of anxiety (35.8%) was observed in cluster seven, which was labeled "news clients and WeChat, no newspaper, radio, or news portals". Relative to cluster one, a significantly elevated risk of depression and anxiety was found in clusters three, six (labeled "news portals and clients, WeChat, no newspaper and radio") and seven (adjusted odds ratio = 1.28-1.46, P ≤ 0.011). Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that the risk of COVID-19 infection and knowledge about COVID-19 partially explained the variations in the prevalence of depression and anxiety across the seven clusters.

Conclusion: Communication policies should be designed to channel crucial pandemic-related information more effectively through traditional and digital media sources. Encouraging the use of these media and implementing regulatory policies to reduce misinformation and rumors on social media, may be effective in mitigating the risk of depression and anxiety among populations affected by the pandemic.