Tracking population mental health before and across stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in young adults

  1. Alex S. F. Kwong
  2. Kate Northstone
  3. Rebecca M. Pearson
  4. Andrew M. McIntosh
  5. Nicholas J. Timpson

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Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has been associated with worsening mental health. Longitudinal studies have monitored changes in mental health from pre-pandemic levels, identifying critical points for mental health as COVID-19 restrictions evolve. Here we highlight changes in depression and anxiety in the UK from pre-pandemic across four pandemic occasions: April and June 2020, January, and July 2021 – corresponding to changes in COVID-19 restrictions. Data were from >5,000 27–29-year-olds from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We found that anxiety almost doubled throughout the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels and remained high until July 2021 when COVID-19 restrictions were fully lifted. Depression was lower than pre-pandemic levels in April 2020 but increased as the pandemic evolved until July 2021. Women, those with existing mental/physical health conditions and those with economic hardship were most at risk of sustained poorer mental health across the pandemic. Our results highlight the importance of longitudinal studies for tracking mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and across virus suppression policy changes.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.24.22272899: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: [13] Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the ALSPAC Ethics and Law Committee and the Local Research Ethics Committees.
    Sex as a biological variableSample: Data were from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) an ongoing longitudinal population-based cohort study that recruited pregnant women residing in Avon (South-West of England) with expected delivery dates between 1st April 1991 and 31st December 1992. [11, 12] The cohort consists of 14,901 children, now young adults (ages 27-29).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot 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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.24.22272899v1 on medRxiv