Fear of COVID-19 and its association with mental health-related factors: systematic review and meta-analysis

<jats:sec id="S2056472422000266_sec_a1"><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>The severity of COVID-19 remains high worldwide. Therefore, millions of individuals are likely to suffer from fear of COVID-19 and related mental health factors.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2056472422000266_sec_a2"><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>The present systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesize empirical evidence to understand fear of COVID-19 and its associations with mental health-related problems during this pandemic period.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2056472422000266_sec_a3" sec-type="methods"><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>Relevant studies were searched for on five databases (Scopus, ProQuest, EMBASE, PubMed Central, and ISI Web of Knowledge), using relevant terms (COVID-19-related fear, anxiety, depression, mental health-related factors, mental well-being and sleep problems). All studies were included for analyses irrespective of their methodological quality, and the impact of quality on pooled effect size was examined by subgroup analysis.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2056472422000266_sec_a4" sec-type="results"><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The meta-analysis pooled data from 91 studies comprising 88 320 participants (mean age 38.88 years; 60.66% females) from 36 countries. The pooled estimated mean of fear of COVID-19 was 13.11 (out of 35), using the Fear of COVID-19 Scale. The associations between fear of COVID-19 and mental health-related factors were mostly moderate (Fisher's <jats:italic>z</jats:italic> = 0.56 for mental health-related factors; 0.54 for anxiety; 0.42 for stress; 0.40 for depression; 0.29 for sleep problems and –0.24 for mental well-being). Methodological quality did not affect these associations.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2056472422000266_sec_a5" sec-type="conclusions"><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Fear of COVID-19 has associations with various mental health-related factors. Therefore, programmes for reducing fear of COVID-19 and improving mental health are needed.</jats:p></jats:sec>