Face covering adherence is positively associated with better mental health and wellbeing: a longitudinal analysis of the CovidLife surveys

  1. Drew Altschul
  2. Chloe Fawns-Ritchie
  3. Alex Kwong
  4. Louise Hartley
  5. Clifford Nangle
  6. Rachel Edwards
  7. Rebecca Dawson
  8. Christie Levein
  9. Archie Campbell
  10. Robin Flaig
  11. Andrew McIntosh
  12. Ian Deary
  13. Riccardo Marioni
  14. Caroline Hayward
  15. Cathie Sudlow
  16. Elaine Douglas
  17. David Bell
  18. David Porteous

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Abstract

Background: Face masks or coverings are effective at reducing airborne infection rates, yet pandemic mitigation measures, including wearing face coverings, have been suggested to contribute to reductions in quality of life and poorer mental health. Complaints of inconvenience, discomfort, and other issues have been repeatedly and loudly voiced by critics, and adherence in many nations is not strong enough to suppress viral spread. We wished to see whether wearing face coverings is associated with mental health and wellbeing.

Methods: We analysed survey 1 and 2 of the CovidLife study, a sample of more than 18,000 individuals living in the UK. The study asked a variety of questions about participants’ psychological, economic, and social lives while living under the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. We measured individuals’ adherence to following guidance on wearing face coverings, as well as several mental health outcomes: depression, anxiety, wellbeing, life satisfaction, and loneliness.

Results: We found no association between lower adherence to face covering guidelines and poorer mental health. The opposite appears to be true. Even after controlling for behavioural, social, and psychological confounds, including measures of pre-pandemic mental health, individuals who wore face coverings “most of the time” or “always” had better mental health and wellbeing than those who did not. Individuals who wore masks only “some of the time” or “never” tended to be male, lower income, and already had COVID-19 or COVID-19-like symptoms.

Conclusions: These results suggest that wearing face coverings more often does not negatively impact mental health. Wearing a face covering more often is actually linked to better mental health and wellbeing. Implications are discussed and we highlight the potential pathways for addressing a lack of face covering that this study reveals.

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  1. Version published to 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16643.1
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.18.20248477: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical approval: The CovidLife study was reviewed and given a favorable opinion by the East of Scotland Research Ethics Committee (Reference: 20/ES/0021 AM02).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data collection and study sample: UK residents aged 18 years and over were eligible to take part in the CovidLife surveys2.
    CovidLife
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.

    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 10.1101/2020.12.18.20248477v1 on medRxiv