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Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

(1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has distressed many populations worldwide, and since its beginning, many institutes have performed cross-sectional studies to assess mental health. We longitudinally examined psychological distress and depressive symptoms among university staff in Japan from 201...

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Autores principales: Tanifuji, Takaki, Mouri, Kentaro, Yamamoto, Yasuji, Aoyama, Shinsuke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9915217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36767575
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032208
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author Tanifuji, Takaki
Mouri, Kentaro
Yamamoto, Yasuji
Aoyama, Shinsuke
author_facet Tanifuji, Takaki
Mouri, Kentaro
Yamamoto, Yasuji
Aoyama, Shinsuke
author_sort Tanifuji, Takaki
collection PubMed
description (1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has distressed many populations worldwide, and since its beginning, many institutes have performed cross-sectional studies to assess mental health. We longitudinally examined psychological distress and depressive symptoms among university staff in Japan from 2019 to 2021, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.; (2) Methods: Participants were teachers and hospital staff working at institutions related to Kobe University, who completed the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) from 2019 to 2021. This study used the definition recommended by the guideline to identify high-stress. We analyzed the relationship between those who identified as having high-stress before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic using logistic regression analysis (adjusted for age, sex, and occupation).; (3) Results: Results showed that Stress Reaction scores increased slightly in 2020 and significantly in 2021. Time and other factors had a synergistic effect on mental health. The increase in Stress Reaction was significantly associated with females and nurses over the three years. Those with high-stress in 2019 had approximately twenty-fold odds ratios (OR) of having high-stress in 2020 and 2021.; (4) Conclusions: The long-term COVID-19 pandemic may disturb university staff’s mental health. Those who originally experienced high levels of stress were vulnerable to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-99152172023-02-11 Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic Tanifuji, Takaki Mouri, Kentaro Yamamoto, Yasuji Aoyama, Shinsuke Int J Environ Res Public Health Article (1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has distressed many populations worldwide, and since its beginning, many institutes have performed cross-sectional studies to assess mental health. We longitudinally examined psychological distress and depressive symptoms among university staff in Japan from 2019 to 2021, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.; (2) Methods: Participants were teachers and hospital staff working at institutions related to Kobe University, who completed the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) from 2019 to 2021. This study used the definition recommended by the guideline to identify high-stress. We analyzed the relationship between those who identified as having high-stress before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic using logistic regression analysis (adjusted for age, sex, and occupation).; (3) Results: Results showed that Stress Reaction scores increased slightly in 2020 and significantly in 2021. Time and other factors had a synergistic effect on mental health. The increase in Stress Reaction was significantly associated with females and nurses over the three years. Those with high-stress in 2019 had approximately twenty-fold odds ratios (OR) of having high-stress in 2020 and 2021.; (4) Conclusions: The long-term COVID-19 pandemic may disturb university staff’s mental health. Those who originally experienced high levels of stress were vulnerable to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. MDPI 2023-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9915217/ /pubmed/36767575 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032208 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tanifuji, Takaki
Mouri, Kentaro
Yamamoto, Yasuji
Aoyama, Shinsuke
Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Psychological Distress among University Staff before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort psychological distress among university staff before and during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9915217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36767575
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032208
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