School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
SAMRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.
J Affect Disord. 2022 Jul 1;308:616-622. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.04.072. Epub 2022 Apr 14.
Studies worldwide have highlighted the acute and long-term depressive impacts of psychosocial stressors due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Among the wide range of risk factors for depression that transpired during pandemic, greater perceptions of individual vulnerability to the COVID-19 have emerged as a major predictor of increased depressive risk and severity in adults.
We estimated the extent to which COVID-19 risk perceptions affected adult depressive symptoms in a longitudinal, nationally representative sample in South Africa. We used covariate balanced propensity scores to minimize the bias from treatment assignment to estimate average causal effects of COVID-19 risk perceptions.
The point prevalence of perceived COVID-19 infection risk increased between the third and fifth months of the pandemic, which corresponded with elevations in national COVID-19 infection rates. Approximately 33% of adults met or surpassed the PHQ-2 cut-off score of 2. An increase in perceived risk of COVID-19 infection predicted worse depressive symptoms in adults four months later.
Our findings highlight the widespread mental health burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasize the importance of greater psychological resources and structural changes to promote equitable access to COVID-19 risk mitigation policies.
由于 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，全球范围内的研究都强调了心理社会压力源对急性和长期抑郁的影响，特别是在中低收入国家。在大流行期间出现的广泛的抑郁风险因素中，对 COVID-19 的个体易感性的更大认知已成为成年人抑郁风险和严重程度增加的主要预测因素。
我们在南非的一个具有全国代表性的纵向样本中，估计了 COVID-19 风险认知对成年抑郁症状的影响程度。我们使用协变量平衡倾向评分来最小化治疗分配引起的偏差，以估计 COVID-19 风险认知的平均因果效应。
在大流行的第三个月到第五个月期间，感知到的 COVID-19 感染风险的点患病率增加，这与全国 COVID-19 感染率的升高相对应。大约 33%的成年人达到或超过了 PHQ-2 的 2 分临界值。四个月后，对 COVID-19 感染风险的增加预测了成年人更严重的抑郁症状。
我们的研究结果突出了 COVID-19 大流行对心理健康的广泛负担，并强调了需要更多的心理资源和结构性变化，以促进公平获得 COVID-19 风险缓解政策。
