Emotional Disorders During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Spain: The Role of Sociodemographic Risk Factors and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies

  1. Roger Muñoz-Navarro
  2. Antonio Cano Vindel
  3. Florian Schmitz
  4. Rosario Cabello
  5. Pablo Fernández-Berrocal

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Abstract

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) play a transdiagnostic role in emotional disorders, but the role of these strategies in coping with emotions during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic remains poorly understood.

Aims

To assess the presence of emotional disorders in Spain and the association to sociodemographic characteristics and CERS during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Method

Cross-sectional survey administered through an online platform. Sociodemographic variables and CERS (CERQ-Short) were collected and possible diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD, GAD-7), major depression disorder (MDD; Patient Health Questionnaire–9 [PHQ-9]), panic attacks (PA; PHQ-PD), and panic disorders (PD; PHQ-PD) were assessed. Sociodemographic risk factors and CERS association to the possible diagnosis of emotional disorders were reported with hierarchical multivariate logistic regression analyses.

Results

A total of 1,753 respondents completed the questionnaire in Spain. Of these, most (76.8%) were female, with a mean ( SD) age of 40.4 years (12.9). A high proportion of participants met diagnostic criteria for emotional disorders: 15.3% for GAD, 12.2% for MDD, 17.2% for PD, and 25.7% had experienced a PA. The contribution of sociodemographic variables to diagnoses of emotional disorders was modest, explaining from 3.1% to 5.7% of the variance; however, when CERS were added, the combination of sociodemographic and CERS explained from 15% to 29% of the variance. Rumination and catastrophizing were the most transdiagnostic maladaptive strategies and positive refocusing was another adaptive strategy.

Discussion

Although results from convenience samples should be handled with caution, the high prevalence of emotional disorders in this study suggests that the demand of mental health interventions will probably increase in Spain. Also, CERS play a clear role in the presence of these disorders.

Conclusion

Intervention programs should focus on training CERS in populations at high risk, focusing on the reduction of maladaptive CERS and the reinforce of other more adaptive CERS.

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  1. Version published to 10.1177/10901981211014101
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.30.20117457: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.30.20117457v1 on medRxiv