Mental Health Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on NIMH Research Participants and Volunteers

Study Description: This protocol leverages existing NIMH studies and participants to accomplish time-sensitive research on the mental health impact of environmental stressors imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will describe the relationship between stressors related to COVID-19 and self-rated measures of mental health symptoms and distress among a range of participants including various patient populations and healthy volunteers. The utilization of a study website to consent and survey participants online is an efficient and timely way to collect research data during this unique public health crisis.

Objectives: The primary objective is to describe the relationship between stressors related to COVID-19 and self-rated measures of mental health symptoms and distress among a range of participants including various patient populations and healthy volunteers. The secondary objectives are to determine whether existing mental health concerns moderates this relationship and to identify risk and resilience factors among study participants regarding the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Endpoints: The primary endpoints are descriptive data on stressors experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and emotional, behavioral, and clinical symptoms. These endpoints will be measured repeatedly using an online platform for up to 6 months. These repeated measures will be combined with previously collected phenotype data on NIMH participants as allowed.

Study Population: The sample size will be up to 10,000 and will include participants 18 years and older of both sexes, any gender, and health status. They must be English-speaking. The study population will include patient and volunteer participants who have consented for a NIMH study in the past as well as new participants from the general population who respond to advertisements for the NIMH COVID study but who have not previously been a NIMH study participant. The NIMH COVID study participants may or may not be local to the Metropolitan Washington DC area but since the study will be conducted entirely online, this is not relevant.