Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Section of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
BMC Psychiatry. 2022 Jan 10;22(1):25. doi: 10.1186/s12888-021-03655-8.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated national lockdowns have been linked to deteriorations in mental health worldwide. A number of studies analysed changes in mental health indicators during the pandemic; however, these studies generally had a small number of timepoints, and focused on the initial months of the pandemic. Furthermore, most studies followed-up the same individuals, resulting in significant loss to follow-up and biased estimates of mental health and its change. Here we report on time trends in key mental health indicators amongst Danish adults over the course of the pandemic (March 2020 - July 2021) focusing on subgroups defined by gender, age, and self-reported previously diagnosed chronic and/or mental illness.
We used time-series data collected by Epinion (N=8,261) with 43 timepoints between 20 March 2020 and 22 July 2021. Using a repeated cross-sectional study design, independent sets of individuals were asked to respond to the Copenhagen Corona-Related Mental Health questionnaire at each timepoint, and data was weighted to population proportions. The six mental health indicators examined were loneliness, anxiety, social isolation, quality of life, COVID-19-related worries, and the mental health scale. Gender, age, and the presence of previously diagnosed mental and/or chronic illness were used to stratify the population into subgroups for comparisons.
Poorer mental health were observed during the strictest phases of the lockdowns, whereas better outcomes occurred during reopening phases. Women, young individuals (<34 yrs), and those with a mental- and/or chronic illness demonstrated poorer mean time-series than others. Those with a pre-existing mental illness further had a less reactive mental health time-series. The greatest differences between women/men and younger/older age groups were observed during the second lockdown.
People with mental illness have reported disadvantageous but stable levels of mental health indicators during the pandemic thus far, and they seem to be less affected by the factors that result in fluctuating time-series in other subgroups.
COVID-19 大流行及其相关的全国封锁与全球范围内的心理健康恶化有关。许多研究分析了大流行期间心理健康指标的变化；然而，这些研究通常只有少数几个时间点，并且集中在大流行的最初几个月。此外，大多数研究都随访了相同的个体，导致大量随访损失和对心理健康及其变化的有偏差的估计。在这里，我们报告了丹麦成年人在大流行期间（2020 年 3 月至 2021 年 7 月）关键心理健康指标的时间趋势，重点关注按性别、年龄和自我报告的先前诊断的慢性和/或精神疾病划分的亚组。
我们使用 Epinion 收集的时间序列数据（N=8261），在 2020 年 3 月 20 日至 2021 年 7 月 22 日期间有 43 个时间点。使用重复横断面研究设计，独立的个体组在每个时间点被要求回答哥本哈根与冠状病毒相关的心理健康问卷，数据按人口比例加权。检查的六个心理健康指标是孤独感、焦虑、社会隔离、生活质量、与 COVID-19 相关的担忧和心理健康量表。性别、年龄和先前诊断的精神和/或慢性疾病的存在用于将人群分层为亚组进行比较。
在封锁最严格的阶段观察到较差的心理健康，而在重新开放阶段则出现较好的结果。女性、年轻人（<34 岁）和有精神和/或慢性疾病的人表现出比其他人更差的平均时间序列。有先前精神疾病的人进一步表现出反应性较差的心理健康时间序列。在第二波封锁期间，观察到女性/男性和年轻/年长年龄组之间的最大差异。
到目前为止，患有精神疾病的人报告了不利但稳定的心理健康指标水平，并且他们似乎较少受到导致其他亚组时间序列波动的因素的影响。
