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

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’ 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 14 days’ quarantine. It was found that quarantine has a negative impact on 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.