School of Demography, Australian National University, 146 Ellery Crescent, Acton ACT 260, Australia.
Research School of Psychology, Australian National University, Building 39, Science Road, Acton ACT 2601, Australia.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 Mar;297:114821. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114821. Epub 2022 Feb 16.
The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on mental health is a major concern worldwide. Measuring the impacts, however, is difficult because of a lack of data that tracks and compares outcomes and potential protective social factors before and during lockdowns.
We aim to quantify the impact of a second lockdown in 2020 in the Australian city of Melbourne on levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness, and analyse whether social relations in the neighbourhood may buffer against the worst effects of lockdown.
We draw on quasi-experimental data from a nationally-representative longitudinal survey conducted in Australia. We use a difference-in-difference approach with a number of control variables to estimate changes in mental health among respondents in Melbourne following the imposition of the lockdown. A measure of perceived neighbourhood social relations is included as an explanatory variable to analyse potential protective effects.
Lockdown is estimated to have increased depressive symptoms by approximately 23% and feelings of loneliness by 4%. No effect on anxiety was detected. Levels of neighbourhood social relations were strongly negatively associated with mental health symptoms. A significant interaction between lockdown and neighbourhood social relations suggests that lockdown increased depressive symptoms by 21% for people with average perceived neighbourhood relations, compared with a 9.7% increase for people whose perceived relations is one standard deviation greater than average.
The results add to evidence of the harsh impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns on mental health. Importantly, neighbourhood social relations and social cohesion more broadly may be an important source of social support in response to lockdowns. These findings provide important insights for researchers and policy-makers in how to understand and respond to the mental health impacts of COVID-19.
新冠疫情封锁措施对全球心理健康的影响是一个重大关注点。然而，由于缺乏在封锁前和封锁期间追踪和比较结果和潜在保护社会因素的数据，因此很难衡量其影响。
我们旨在量化 2020 年澳大利亚墨尔本第二次封锁对抑郁、焦虑和孤独水平的影响，并分析邻里社会关系是否可以缓冲封锁的最坏影响。
我们借鉴了在澳大利亚进行的一项全国代表性纵向调查的准实验数据。我们使用差异中的差异方法和一些控制变量来估计在墨尔本实施封锁后受访者心理健康状况的变化。还包括邻里社会关系感知的衡量标准作为解释变量，以分析潜在的保护效应。
封锁被估计使抑郁症状增加了约 23%，孤独感增加了 4%。未检测到对焦虑的影响。邻里社会关系的水平与心理健康症状呈强烈负相关。封锁和邻里社会关系之间的显著交互作用表明，对于感知邻里关系平均水平的人，封锁使抑郁症状增加了 21%，而对于感知关系比平均水平高一个标准差的人，抑郁症状增加了 9.7%。
研究结果增加了新冠疫情及其相关封锁对心理健康的严重影响的证据。重要的是，邻里社会关系和更广泛的社会凝聚力可能是封锁期间社会支持的重要来源。这些发现为研究人员和政策制定者提供了有关如何理解和应对新冠疫情对心理健康影响的重要见解。
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