Developments In Psychology ’s Covid Research

By Emma L. Barratt Early in the pandemic, there was a rapid shift in the pace of research. With the situation evolving quickly, lockdowns coming into effect, and the massive loss of life that followed, researchers across academia were racing against the clock to produce papers. This haste was unusual for most scientists, more used to detailed scrutiny, further investigations, and collaboration. As a result, some were concerned about the rigour of papers that would ultimately see the light of day. Early on, psychologist Vaughan Bell tweeted with regards to Covid research, “If it’s urgent, the urgency is to do it right”. Now, almost two years into the pandemic, we can begin to assess how robust our efforts were, and see where developments are leading us. An imperfect worldThere is no escaping the fact that some initial fears about the quality of Covid research (mentioned in our May 2020 piece) did come to pass. It was always going to be the case that an expedited timeline, as well as the torrent of Covid-related papers — some estimates have it at over 200,000 papers in 2020 — would bend traditional publication frameworks to breaking point. As early as August 2020, a systematic review by Inés Nieto and colleagues highlighted that while the majority of mental health research pertaining to Covid did report the expected statistical and methodological information, the reliance on convenience samples, lack of power analyses, and lack of...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Coronavirus Feature Source Type: blogs