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Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had major ramifications for health and the economy at both the individual and collective levels. This study examined exogenous negative changes in household income and their implications on psychological well-being (PWB) among the Chinese population during the C...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10583462/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37848883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-02022-1 |
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author | Lai, Sha Lu, Li Shen, Chi Yan, Alice Lei, Yanjun Zhou, Zhongliang Wang, Youfa |
author_facet | Lai, Sha Lu, Li Shen, Chi Yan, Alice Lei, Yanjun Zhou, Zhongliang Wang, Youfa |
author_sort | Lai, Sha |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had major ramifications for health and the economy at both the individual and collective levels. This study examined exogenous negative changes in household income and their implications on psychological well-being (PWB) among the Chinese population during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Data were drawn from the early China COVID-19 Survey, a cross-sectional anonymous online survey administered to the general population in China. Self-reported PWB was measured using a 5-point Likert scale with five questions related to the participants’ recent psychological state. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was employed to examine whether income loss during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with poor psychological health. RESULTS: This study included 8,428 adults, of which 90% had suffered from a moderate or severe loss of household income due to the early COVID-19 pandemic. Those who had experienced moderate or severe loss of income scored significantly lower on psychological well-being than those who did not experience income loss (19.96 or 18.07 vs. 21.46; P < 0.001); after controlling for confounders, income loss was negatively associated with PWB scores (moderate income loss: B = − 0.603, P < 0.001; severe income loss: B = − 1.261, P < 0.001). An interaction effect existed between the degree of income loss and pre-pandemic income groups. Specifically, participants in the middle-income group who had suffered severe income loss scored the lowest on PWB (B = − 1.529, P < 0.001). There was also a main effect on income loss, such that participants with varying degrees of income loss differed across five dimensions, including anhedonia, sleep problems, irritability or anger, difficulty with concentration, and repeated disturbing dreams related to COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: Income loss during the pandemic has had detrimental consequences on psychological well-being, and the magnitude of the impact of income loss on psychological well-being varied according to previous income levels. Future policy efforts should be directed toward improving the psychological well-being of the economically vulnerable and helping them recover from lost income in the shortest time possible. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-023-02022-1. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10583462 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105834622023-10-19 Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic Lai, Sha Lu, Li Shen, Chi Yan, Alice Lei, Yanjun Zhou, Zhongliang Wang, Youfa Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had major ramifications for health and the economy at both the individual and collective levels. This study examined exogenous negative changes in household income and their implications on psychological well-being (PWB) among the Chinese population during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Data were drawn from the early China COVID-19 Survey, a cross-sectional anonymous online survey administered to the general population in China. Self-reported PWB was measured using a 5-point Likert scale with five questions related to the participants’ recent psychological state. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was employed to examine whether income loss during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with poor psychological health. RESULTS: This study included 8,428 adults, of which 90% had suffered from a moderate or severe loss of household income due to the early COVID-19 pandemic. Those who had experienced moderate or severe loss of income scored significantly lower on psychological well-being than those who did not experience income loss (19.96 or 18.07 vs. 21.46; P < 0.001); after controlling for confounders, income loss was negatively associated with PWB scores (moderate income loss: B = − 0.603, P < 0.001; severe income loss: B = − 1.261, P < 0.001). An interaction effect existed between the degree of income loss and pre-pandemic income groups. Specifically, participants in the middle-income group who had suffered severe income loss scored the lowest on PWB (B = − 1.529, P < 0.001). There was also a main effect on income loss, such that participants with varying degrees of income loss differed across five dimensions, including anhedonia, sleep problems, irritability or anger, difficulty with concentration, and repeated disturbing dreams related to COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: Income loss during the pandemic has had detrimental consequences on psychological well-being, and the magnitude of the impact of income loss on psychological well-being varied according to previous income levels. Future policy efforts should be directed toward improving the psychological well-being of the economically vulnerable and helping them recover from lost income in the shortest time possible. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-023-02022-1. BioMed Central 2023-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10583462/ /pubmed/37848883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-02022-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Lai, Sha Lu, Li Shen, Chi Yan, Alice Lei, Yanjun Zhou, Zhongliang Wang, Youfa Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title | Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full | Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title_fullStr | Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full_unstemmed | Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title_short | Income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the Chinese population during the early COVID-19 pandemic |
title_sort | income loss and subsequent poor psychological well-being among the chinese population during the early covid-19 pandemic |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10583462/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37848883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-02022-1 |
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