The psychological effects of quarantine during COVID-19 outbreak: Sentiment analysis of social media data

Abstract

We rely on social distancing measures such as quarantine and isolation to contain the COVID-19. However, the negative psychological effects of these measures are non-negligible. To supplement previous research on psychological effects after quarantine, this research will investigate the effects of quarantine amid COVID-19. We adopt a sentiment analysis approach to analyze the psychological state changes of 1,278 quarantined persons with 214,874 tweets over four weeks spanning the period before, during, and after quarantine. We formed a control group of 1,278 unquarantined persons with 250,198 tweets. The tweets of both groups are analyzed by matching with a lexicon to measure the anxious depression level changes over time. We discovered a clear pattern of psychological changes for quarantined persons. Anxious depression levels significantly increased as quarantine starts, but gradually diminished as it progresses. However, anxious depression levels resurged after a 14-day quarantine. It was found that quarantine has a negative impact on the mental health of quarantined and unquarantined people. Whilst quarantine is deemed necessary, proper interventions such as emotion management should be introduced to mitigate its adverse psychological impacts.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementNo funding support for this study.Author DeclarationsI confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.YesThe details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:Prof. T.S. Veitch, Chairman, Human Resource Ethics Committee, The University of Hong KongAll necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.YesAll the data for this research is collected from Twitter.https://github.com/EaGlEtSuImars/The-Psychological-effects-of-quarantine-during-COVID.git.