Heterogeneous mental health development during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the mitigation measures by governments have upended the economic and social lives of many, leading to widespread psychological distress. We explore heterogeneity in trajectories of psychological distress during the pandemic in the United Kingdom and relate this heterogeneity to socio-demographic and health factors. We analyze nine waves of longitudinal, nationally representative survey data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study ( $$N=15{,}914$$ N = 15 , 914 ), covering the period from early 2020 to mid-2021. First, latent class mixture modelling is used to identify trajectories of psychological distress. Second, associations of the trajectories with covariates are tested with multinomial logistic regressions. We find four different trajectories of distress: continuously low, temporarily elevated, repeatedly elevated, and continuously elevated distress. Nearly two fifths of the population experienced severely elevated risks of distress during the pandemic. Long-term distress was highest among younger people, women, people living without a partner, those who had no work or lost income, and those with previous health conditions or COVID-19 symptoms. Given the threat of persistent stress on health, policy measures should be sensitized to the unintended yet far-reaching consequences of non-pharmaceutical interventions.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.24.21251565: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The University of Essex Ethics Committee approved the data collection and informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Consent: The University of Essex Ethics Committee approved the data collection and informed consent was obtained from all participants.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:A limitation of the present study was the use of self-reported psychological …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.24.21251565: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The University of Essex Ethics Committee approved the data collection and informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Consent: The University of Essex Ethics Committee approved the data collection and informed consent was obtained from all participants.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:A limitation of the present study was the use of self-reported psychological distress and the coverage of the first lockdown only. Future research could investigate the course of mental health for a longer time period, preferably spanning over several lockdowns. It would be interesting to see whether individuals from the lowly and moderately stressed group eventually experience disaster fatigue with a delayed onset of severe distress, or whether continuously distressed individuals undergo adaptive processes during the pandemic. Moreover, the development of psychological distress may be investigated in combination with correlated health variables, such as drinking behavior, through modelling joint trajectories. The heterogeneity in the development of mental health during the pandemic emphasizes peoples’ idiosyncrasy in responses to extreme changes. Likewise, policy-makers will need to be careful in identifying and supporting groups at risk. Addressed health risks should not merely prioritize physical outcomes directly related to the COVID-19 disease, but include longer-term consequences in the domain of mental and social well-being of the general public (Holmes et al., 2020).
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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