Using crisis text messaging service data to measure the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on mental health in Ireland

Hamda Ajmal, Ruth Melia, Karen Young, John Bogue, Hannah Wood, Mary O' Sullivan and Jim Duggan

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2025, vol. 44, issue 10, 2226-2243

Abstract: In 2020 and 2021, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were implemented globally to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. This study is aimed to assess the impact of NPIs on the public mental health in Ireland by drawing on two datasets: (1) data of 43,433 chats initiated at Text About It, a free text-based mental health crisis service in Ireland, and (2) emotional well-being indicators reported by respondents of the Amárach public opinion survey, carried out on behalf of the Department of Health, Ireland. Our analysis reveals that COVID-19-related chats drove overall volumes of chats to Text About It between June 2020 to July 2021. Surges in text volumes immediately prior to new restrictions in Ireland indicate an association between the announcements of the new restrictions and a sudden rise in mental health concerns. Through segmented regression, seven distinct breakpoints were identified across weekly chat volumes at Text About It, the majority of which co-occurred with dates when considerable changes in NPIs were made. Significant high cross-correlation is found between emotional well-being variables in the Amárach dataset and the number of weekly COVID-19 related texts to Text About It. This analysis confirms the value of Text About It as community surveillance indicator for population mental health.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2023.2284242 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:44:y:2025:i:10:p:2226-2243

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2023.2284242

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().