Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Relation to Work Patterns During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Epidemic in Philadelphia PA

  1. Igor Burstyn
  2. Tran Huynh

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Abstract

We investigated whether patterns of work during COVID-19 pandemic altered by effort to contain the outbreak affected anxiety and depression.

Methods:

We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of 911 residents of Philadelphia, inquiring about their working lives during early months of the epidemic, symptoms of anxiety and depression, plus demographics, perceived sources of support, and general health.

Results:

Occupational contact with suspected COVID-19 cases was associated with anxiety. Concerns about return to work, childcare, lack of sick leave, and loss/reduction in work correlated with anxiety and depression, even when there was no evidence of occupational contact with infected persons; patterns differed by sex.

Conclusions:

Heightened anxiety and depression during COVID-19 pandemic can be due to widespread disruption of working lives, especially in “non-essential” low-income industries, on par with experience in healthcare.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1097/jom.0000000000002179
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.21.21250117: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Data preparation: A total of 2,664 persons read the informed consent page and provided a response, of whom 1,577 consented to proceed with the survey.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableAll analyses were stratified by gender due to known differences in (a) rates of anxiety and depression by sex and (b) working conditions between men and women even when the description of work appears identical.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis: Data was prepared for analysis in R.(16) All statistical calculations were performed in SAS v 9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
    SAS Institute
    suggested: (Statistical Analysis System, RRID:SCR_008567)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The most glaring limitation of our survey is that does not represent all working people in Philadelphia and thus any conclusions must be drawn with the understanding that no matter how internally valid, inferences regarding those not represented in the sample (non-white, with less than college education, with low income) is tenuous. Nonetheless, we offer some observations that may not be modified by key demographics, as they relate to universal fears of contagion and economic insecurities, as well as support from immediate family being beneficial. Cross-sectional design and lack of questions on history of mental health limits ability to draw causal inferences. We did control for general health (though not mental health specifically, as was desirable) and health during epidemic, with reports of having been unwell for two or more days associated with anxiety and depression, as in Burstyn & Holt.(19) We also inquired about income pre-epidemic, changes in work during epidemic, and epidemic-specific events (contact with infected, onset of telecommuting, aggravation of challenges of childcare, PPE) and accounted for them in analysis. Nonetheless, it is impossible to rule out residual confounding and reverse causation (e.g., people with finding themselves in less stable and desirable employment situations following onset of mental health problem that either persists or is aggravated by the epidemic). Although we present results by gender, we did not formally test effect modification...

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.01.21.21250117v1 on medRxiv