The depressive state of Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020) is likely to have negative health consequences beyond those caused by the virus per se. As outlined in the recent paper by Druss (2020), a medical field likely to experience significant consequences of the pandemic and its accompanying societal changes is that of psychiatry. Indeed, there are studies suggesting that there may be a general worsening of mental health in the populations affected by the pandemic. In a recent survey from China, 54% of the respondents rated the COVID-19 outbreak to have a moderate or severe negative psychological impact (Wang et al., 2020). A similar tendency was seen in a survey conducted in the USA by the American Psychiatric Association (2020). However – in both cases – there were no prior survey data targeting the same population available to allow for a benchmark comparison. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to measure the level of psychological well-being in Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare it to prior Danish data obtained with the same measure.