The Psychological, Social, and Economic Impacts of COVID-19

Overview

A dynamic analytical tool is being implemented to monitor the health, psychosocial and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic as the crisis unfolds. A longitudinal survey is distributed via a network of hospitals, provincial/national organizations and web platforms. The survey information can be linked to provincial health administrative data and metrics derived from social media activity based on artificial intelligence methods. Targeted questions are included for critical populations such as healthcare workers and people with chronic illnesses.

The current situation unfolding with regards to the COVID-19 virus is changing core aspects of people's lives in a unique manner. This study aims to examine the psychological, social, and financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at various stages of the outbreak. Individuals 12 years and older are recruited from three main groups: general population, people with chronic illnesses and healthcare professionals. An online survey is distributed via multiple hospitals, provincial/national organizations, and web-based platforms at various phases of the outbreak. The survey includes validated questionnaires and custom-made questions to asses the current situation. It notably addresses the following themes: demographics, COVID-19 symptoms and diagnoses, social distancing practices and social interactions, living situation, financial situation, family and work-related challenges, access to healthcare, as well as sleep, physical and mental health. The survey is available in English and French. It is built on a decisional tree structure with customized subsets of questions based on previous answers.The survey contains an adolescent version and an adult version, and also includes targeted questions for individuals with a current diagnosis of a mental/medical illness. Consent is also sought to link data from parent-child dyads to enable finer analyses of family dynamics. Healthcare staff are invited to answer questions about work-related difficulties, usefulness of virtual tools for clinical practice, as well as moral distress and moral resilience in the context of clinical practice. Healthcare staff who are short on time can chose fill out an abbreviated version. Participants have the option of enabling linkage to linked to provincial health administrative data, and to provide their twitter and facebook handle for social media and mood monitoring through artificial intelligence algorithms. Participants have the option of being followed longitudinally during and after the outbreak.