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Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a range of negative social and economic effects that may contribute to a rise in mental health problems. In this observational population-based study, we examined longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems from before to during the COVI...

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Autores principales: Daly, Michael, Sutin, Angelina R., Robinson, Eric
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7737138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33183370
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720004432
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author Daly, Michael
Sutin, Angelina R.
Robinson, Eric
author_facet Daly, Michael
Sutin, Angelina R.
Robinson, Eric
author_sort Daly, Michael
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a range of negative social and economic effects that may contribute to a rise in mental health problems. In this observational population-based study, we examined longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems from before to during the COVID-19 crisis and identified subgroups that are psychologically vulnerable during the pandemic. METHODS: Participants (N = 14 393; observations = 48 486) were adults drawn from wave 9 (2017–2019) of the nationally representative United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) and followed-up across three waves of assessment in April, May, and June 2020. Mental health problems were assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). RESULTS: The population prevalence of mental health problems (GHQ-12 score ⩾3) increased by 13.5 percentage points from 24.3% in 2017–2019 to 37.8% in April 2020 and remained elevated in May (34.7%) and June (31.9%) 2020. All sociodemographic groups examined showed statistically significant increases in mental health problems in April 2020. The increase was largest among those aged 18–34 years (18.6 percentage points, 95% CI 14.3–22.9%), followed by females and high-income and education groups. Levels of mental health problems subsequently declined between April and June 2020 but remained significantly above pre-COVID-19 levels. Additional analyses showed that the rise in mental health problems observed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to be due to seasonality or year-to-year variation. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that a pronounced and prolonged deterioration in mental health occurred as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the UK between April and June 2020.
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spelling pubmed-77371382020-12-15 Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study Daly, Michael Sutin, Angelina R. Robinson, Eric Psychol Med Original Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a range of negative social and economic effects that may contribute to a rise in mental health problems. In this observational population-based study, we examined longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems from before to during the COVID-19 crisis and identified subgroups that are psychologically vulnerable during the pandemic. METHODS: Participants (N = 14 393; observations = 48 486) were adults drawn from wave 9 (2017–2019) of the nationally representative United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) and followed-up across three waves of assessment in April, May, and June 2020. Mental health problems were assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). RESULTS: The population prevalence of mental health problems (GHQ-12 score ⩾3) increased by 13.5 percentage points from 24.3% in 2017–2019 to 37.8% in April 2020 and remained elevated in May (34.7%) and June (31.9%) 2020. All sociodemographic groups examined showed statistically significant increases in mental health problems in April 2020. The increase was largest among those aged 18–34 years (18.6 percentage points, 95% CI 14.3–22.9%), followed by females and high-income and education groups. Levels of mental health problems subsequently declined between April and June 2020 but remained significantly above pre-COVID-19 levels. Additional analyses showed that the rise in mental health problems observed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to be due to seasonality or year-to-year variation. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that a pronounced and prolonged deterioration in mental health occurred as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the UK between April and June 2020. Cambridge University Press 2020-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7737138/ /pubmed/33183370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720004432 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Daly, Michael
Sutin, Angelina R.
Robinson, Eric
Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title_full Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title_fullStr Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title_full_unstemmed Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title_short Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
title_sort longitudinal changes in mental health and the covid-19 pandemic: evidence from the uk household longitudinal study
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7737138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33183370
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720004432
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