Does living close to a petrochemical complex increase the adverse psychological effects of the COVID-19 lockdown?
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Abstract
The petrochemical industry has made the economic development of many local communities possible, increasing employment opportunities and generating a complex network of closely-related secondary industries. However, it is known that petrochemical industries emit air pollutants, which have been related to different negative effects on mental health. In addition, many people around the world are being exposed to highly stressful situations deriving from the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns adopted by national and regional governments. The present study aims to analyse the possible differential effects on various psychological outcomes (stress, anxiety, depression and emotional regulation strategies) stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown experienced by individuals living near an important petrochemical complex and subjects living in other areas, nonexposed to the characteristic environmental pollutants emitted by these kinds of complex. The sample consisted of 1607 subjects who answered an ad hoc questionnaire on lockdown conditions, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS) and the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). The results indicate that people living closer to petrochemical complexes reported greater risk perception [ K = 73.42, p < 0.001, with a medium size effect ( η 2 = 0.061)]. However, no significant relationship between psychological variables and proximity to the focus was detected when comparing people living near to or far away from a chemical/petrochemical complex. Regarding the adverse psychological effects of the first lockdown due to COVID-19 on the general population in Catalonia, we can conclude that the conditions included in this survey were mainly related to changes in the participants’ impulsivity levels, with different total impulsivity scores being obtained if they had minors in their care (p<0.001), if they had lost their jobs, if they were working (p<0.001), if they were not telecommuting (p<0.001), if they went out to work (p<0.001) or if they established routines (p = 0.009). However, we can also be fairly certain that the economic effects are going to be worse than those initially detected in this study. More research will be necessary to corroborate our results.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.01.20241711: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Before completing the survey, information about the objectives of the study was provided and an informed consent was requested.
IRB: It was approved by the Ethics Committee of Clinical Research of the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain) (reference number: 084/2020).Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Finally, the sample was composed by 1607 subjects (1195 women with 39.43 ± 13.61 years of average age and 412 men with and average age of 44.02 ± 14.42 years). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Cartography was created using … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.01.20241711: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Before completing the survey, information about the objectives of the study was provided and an informed consent was requested.
IRB: It was approved by the Ethics Committee of Clinical Research of the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain) (reference number: 084/2020).Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Finally, the sample was composed by 1607 subjects (1195 women with 39.43 ± 13.61 years of average age and 412 men with and average age of 44.02 ± 14.42 years). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Cartography was created using ArcGIS 10.2.3 software (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, CA, USA), in a point vector format and using ETRS89 UTM 31N projection. ArcGISsuggested: (ArcGIS for Desktop Basic, RRID:SCR_011081)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 found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).
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.
- Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.
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