Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jun 24, 2020
Date Accepted: Aug 21, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 25, 2020
Association between Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) scores and online activity among US adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Greater consumption of information pertaining to stressful events/news, including information related to the current COVID-19 pandemic, may increase anxiety.
Objective:
In this study, we examined online activity-related correlates of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) scores in the US.
Methods:
We used data from an internet survey of 406 adult US participants with moderate to severe (≥10) GAD scores. We measured anxiety using the GAD-7 scale. The key independent variables comprised (i) average daily time spent online and (ii) average daily time spent online searching about coronavirus within the past 14 days. Other covariates included were binge drinking, substance use, prescription drug abuse, sleep quality (measured using a sleep scale), COVID19 fear inventory scale and sociodemographic attributes.
Results:
Linear multivariate regression analyses showed that GAD scores were higher among those who spend >4 hours online (per day) searching for information about coronavirus (coeff = 1.29, P = .002), controlling for all other covariates. Total time spent online was not statistically associated with the outcome. GAD scores were inversely correlated with quality of sleep (coeff = -1.02, P < .001) and positively with COVID19 fear inventory scale (coeff = 1.47, P < .001). Prescription drug abuse in the past 14 days also corresponded with higher GAD scores (coeff = 1.12, P = .007). Limitations include that our study is cross-sectional and drawn from a non-representative subset of the general population.
Conclusions:
Results suggest that, among this population, greater than 4 hours of average daily online activity related to coronavirus information might be associated with increased anxiety. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04376515
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