Psychological distress, anxiety, family violence, suicidality, and wellbeing in New Zealand during the COVID-19 lockdown: A cross-sectional study.
Susanna Every-Palmer,Matthew Jenkins,Philip Gendall,Janet Hoek,Ben Beaglehole,Caroline Bell,Jonathan Williman,Charlene Rapsey,James Stanley +8 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
New Zealand’s lockdown successfully eliminated COVID-19 from the community, but this achievement brought a significant psychological toll, and the findings emphasise the need to pay equal attention to their effects on psychological wellbeing.Abstract:
New Zealand's early response to the novel coronavirus pandemic included a strict lockdown which eliminated community transmission of COVID-19. However, this success was not without cost, both economic and social. In our study, we examined the psychological wellbeing of New Zealanders during the COVID-19 lockdown when restrictions reduced social contact, limited recreation opportunities, and resulted in job losses and financial insecurity. We conducted an online panel survey of a demographically representative sample of 2010 adult New Zealanders in April 2020. The survey contained three standardised measures-the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), the GAD-7, and the Well-Being Index (WHO-5)-as well as questions designed specifically to measure family violence, suicidal ideation, and alcohol consumption. It also included items assessing positive aspects of the lockdown. Thirty percent of respondents reported moderate to severe psychological distress (K10), 16% moderate to high levels of anxiety, and 39% low wellbeing; well above baseline measures. Poorer outcomes were seen among young people and those who had lost jobs or had less work, those with poor health status, and who had past diagnoses of mental illness. Suicidal ideation was reported by 6%, with 2% reporting making plans for suicide and 2% reporting suicide attempts. Suicidality was highest in those aged 18-34. Just under 10% of participants had directly experienced some form of family harm over the lockdown period. However, not all consequences of the lockdown were negative, with 62% reporting 'silver linings', which included enjoying working from home, spending more time with family, and a quieter, less polluted environment. New Zealand's lockdown successfully eliminated COVID-19 from the community, but our results show this achievement brought a significant psychological toll. Although much of the debate about lockdown measures has focused on their economic effects, our findings emphasise the need to pay equal attention to their effects on psychological wellbeing.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among general Bangladeshi population: a cross-sectional study.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted an online cross-sectional survey among 672 Bangladeshi people aged between 15 and 65 years all over the country from 15 April to 10 May 2020.
Journal ArticleDOI
Suicide behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic: A meta-analysis of 54 studies.
TL;DR: In the most comprehensive test of the COVID-19-suicidality link to date, this paper meta-analyzed data from 308,596 participants across 54 studies and found increased event rates for suicide ideation (10.81%), suicide attempts (4.68%), and self-harm (9.63%), when considered against event rates from pre-pandemic studies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trends in suicide in Japan by gender during the COVID-19 pandemic, up to September 2020.
Shuhei Nomura,Shuhei Nomura,Takayuki Kawashima,Daisuke Yoneoka,Yuta Tanoue,Akifumi Eguchi,Stuart Gilmour,Yumi Kawamura,Nahoko Harada,Masahiro Hashizume +9 more
TL;DR: The results indicate the importance of COVID-19 related suicide prevention, especially for women, and suggest timely access to mental health care and financial and social support is urgently needed, as is optimal treatment for mental illness.
Journal ArticleDOI
Understanding different trajectories of mental health across the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identified trajectories of depression and anxiety using growth mixture modelling and identified sociodemographic and personality-related risk factors associated with trajectory class membership, including age, gender, ethnicity, income, previous diagnoses, living situation, personality factors and sociability were associated with different trajectories.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
A Brief Measure for Assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The GAD-7
TL;DR: In this article, a 7-item anxiety scale (GAD-7) had good reliability, as well as criterion, construct, factorial, and procedural validity, and increasing scores on the scale were strongly associated with multiple domains of functional impairment.
Journal Article
A Brief Measure for Assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The GAD-7
TL;DR: The GAD-7 is a valid and efficient tool for screening for GAD and assessing its severity in clinical practice and research.
Journal ArticleDOI
Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China.
Cuiyan Wang,Riyu Pan,Xiaoyang Wan,Yilin Tan,Linkang Xu,Cyrus S.H. Ho,Roger C.M. Ho,Roger C.M. Ho +7 more
TL;DR: The findings identify factors associated with a lower level of psychological impact and better mental health status that can be used to formulate psychological interventions to improve the mental health of vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Journal ArticleDOI
Factors Associated With Mental Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019.
Jianbo Lai,Simeng Ma,Ying Wang,Zhongxiang Cai,Jianbo Hu,Ning Wei,Jiang Wu,Hui Du,Tingting Chen,Ruiting Li,Huawei Tan,Lijun Kang,Lihua Yao,Manli Huang,Huafen Wang,Gaohua Wang,Zhongchun Liu,Shaohua Hu +17 more
TL;DR: Among Chinese health care workers exposed to COVID-19, women, nurses, those in Wuhan, and front-line health care Workers have a high risk of developing unfavorable mental health outcomes and may need psychological support or interventions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Screening for Serious Mental Illness in the General Population
Ronald C. Kessler,Peggy Barker,Lisa J. Colpe,Joan Epstein,Joseph C. Gfroerer,Eva Hiripi,Mary J. Howes,Sharon-Lise T. Normand,Ronald W. Manderscheid,Ellen E. Walters,Alan M. Zaslavsky +10 more
TL;DR: The brevity and accuracy of the K6 and K10 scales make them attractive screens for SMI, and routine inclusion of either scale in clinical studies would create an important, and heretofore missing, crosswalk between community and clinical epidemiology.
Related Papers (5)
Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science.
Emily A. Holmes,Emily A. Holmes,Rory C. O'Connor,V. Hugh Perry,Irene Tracey,Simon Wessely,Louise Arseneault,Clive Ballard,Helen Christensen,Roxane Cohen Silver,Ian P. Everall,Tamsin Ford,Ann John,Thomas Kabir,Kate King,Ira Madan,Susan Michie,Andrew K. Przybylski,Roz Shafran,Angela Sweeney,Carol M. Worthman,Lucy Yardley,Katherine Cowan,Claire Cope,Matthew Hotopf,Edward T. Bullmore +25 more