Psychological consequences of COVID-19 home confinement: The ECLB-COVID19 multicenter study

  1. Achraf Ammar
  2. Patrick Mueller
  3. Khaled Trabelsi
  4. Hamdi Chtourou
  5. Omar Boukhris
  6. Liwa Masmoudi
  7. Bassem Bouaziz
  8. Michael Brach
  9. Marlen Schmicker
  10. Ellen Bentlage
  11. Daniella How
  12. Mona Ahmed
  13. Asma Aloui
  14. Omar Hammouda
  15. Laisa Liane Paineiras-Domingos
  16. Annemarie Braakman-jansen
  17. Christian Wrede
  18. Sophia Bastoni
  19. Carlos Soares Pernambuco
  20. Leonardo Jose Mataruna-Dos-Santos
  21. Morteza Taheri
  22. Khadijeh Irandoust
  23. Aïmen Khacharem
  24. Nicola L. Bragazzi
  25. Jad Adrian Washif
  26. Jordan M. Glenn
  27. Nicholas T. Bott
  28. Faiez Gargouri
  29. Lotfi Chaari
  30. Hadj Batatia
  31. Samira C. khoshnami
  32. Evangelia Samara
  33. Vasiliki Zisi
  34. Parasanth Sankar
  35. Waseem N. Ahmed
  36. Gamal Mohamed Ali
  37. Osama Abdelkarim
  38. Mohamed Jarraya
  39. Kais El Abed
  40. Mohamed Romdhani
  41. Nizar Souissi
  42. Lisette Van Gemert-Pijnen
  43. Stephen J. Bailey
  44. Wassim Moalla
  45. Jonathan Gómez-Raja
  46. Monique Epstein
  47. Robbert Sanderman
  48. Sebastian Schulz
  49. Achim Jerg
  50. Ramzi Al-Horani
  51. Taysir Mansi
  52. Mohamed Jmail
  53. Fernando Barbosa
  54. Fernando Ferreira-Santos
  55. Boštjan Šimunič
  56. Rado Pišot
  57. Andrea Gaggioli
  58. Piotr Zmijewski
  59. Jürgen M. Steinacker
  60. Jana Strahler
  61. Laurel Riemann
  62. Bryan L. Riemann
  63. Notger Mueller
  64. Karim Chamari
  65. Tarak Driss
  66. Anita Hoekelmann
  67. for the ECLB-COVID19 Consortium

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Abstract

Public health recommendations and government measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have enforced restrictions on daily-living. While these measures are imperative to abate the spreading of COVID-19, the impact of these restrictions on mental health and emotional wellbeing is undefined. Therefore, an international online survey (ECLB-COVID19) was launched on April 6, 2020 in seven languages to elucidate the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Methods

The ECLB-COVID19 electronic survey was designed by a steering group of multidisciplinary scientists, following a structured review of the literature. The survey was uploaded and shared on the Google online-survey-platform and was promoted by thirty-five research organizations from Europe, North-Africa, Western-Asia and the Americas. All participants were asked for their mental wellbeing (SWEMWS) and depressive symptoms (SMFQ) with regard to “during” and “before” home confinement.

Results

Analysis was conducted on the first 1047 replies (54% women) from Asia (36%), Africa (40%), Europe (21%) and other (3%). The COVID-19 home confinement had a negative effect on both mental-wellbeing and on mood and feelings. Specifically, a significant decrease ( p < .001 and Δ% = 9.4%) in total score of the SWEMWS questionnaire was noted. More individuals (+12.89%) reported a low mental wellbeing “during” compared to “before” home confinement. Furthermore, results from the mood and feelings questionnaire showed a significant increase by 44.9% ( p < .001) in SMFQ total score with more people (+10%) showing depressive symptoms “during” compared to “before” home confinement.

Conclusion

The ECLB-COVID19 survey revealed an increased psychosocial strain triggered by the home confinement. To mitigate this high risk of mental disorders and to foster an Active and Healthy Confinement Lifestyle (AHCL), a crisis-oriented interdisciplinary intervention is urgently needed.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0240204
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.05.20091058: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: The protocol and the consent form were fully approved (identification code: 62/20) by the Otto von Guericke University Ethics Committee.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    All statistical analyses were performed using the commercial statistical software STATISTICA (StatSoft, Paris, France, version 10.0) and Microsoft Excel 2010.
    STATISTICA
    suggested: (STATISTICA , RRID:SCR_014213)
    Microsoft Excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)

    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 10.1101/2020.05.05.20091058v1 on medRxiv