Abstract
ObjectivesThe COVID‐19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study aims to assess the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the adult population in multiple countries. This paper describes the third wave of the UK survey (the ‘parent’ strand of the Consortium) during July‐August 2020.MethodsAdults (N = 2025) who participated in the baseline and/or first follow‐up surveys were reinvited to participate in this survey, which assessed: (1) COVID‐19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours; (2) the occurrence of common mental disorders; as well as the role of (3) psychological factors and (4) social and political attitudes, in influencing the public’s response to the pandemic. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure that the cross‐sectional sample is nationally representative in terms of gender, age, and household income, and representative of the baseline sample characteristics for household composition, ethnicity, urbanicity and born/raised in UK.Results1166 adults (57.6% of baseline participants) provided full interviews at Wave 3. The raking procedure successfully re‐balanced the cross‐sectional sample to within 1% of population estimates across selected socio‐demographic characteristics.ConclusionThis paper demonstrates the strength of the C19PRC Study data to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Highlights
Despite the existence of a substantial evidence base pointing to the positive sequelae of pandemics, widespread concern has been expressed about the protracted nature of the COVID‐19 pandemic, and its potentially significant negative socio‐economic and health‐related impact on the lives of citizens over the medium to long term (GayerAnderson et al, 2020; Ornell et al, 2020; Shah et al, 2020)
A broad array of standardised measures were used to capture the prevalence of common mental disorders including major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as other important experiences such as somatisation and paranoia (McBride et al, 2020)
This paper describes the COVID‐19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) team’s work to (i) examine the level of attrition in the C19PRC by the third wave and whether this could be predicted by important baseline mental‐health attributes, psychological characteristics, as well as socio‐demographic factors; (ii) conduct weighting procedures to formally manage attrition in the longitudinal panel; and (iii) determine the success of sample refreshment procedures conducted at C19PRC‐UKW3
Summary
Despite the existence of a substantial evidence base pointing to the positive sequelae of pandemics (e.g. increased resilience and optimism, better social support and bonding, etc.; Chen & Bonanno, 2020; Drury & Tekin Guven, 2020; Solnit, 2010), widespread concern has been expressed about the protracted nature of the COVID‐19 pandemic, and its potentially significant negative socio‐economic and health‐related impact on the lives of citizens over the medium to long term (GayerAnderson et al, 2020; Ornell et al, 2020; Shah et al, 2020). Recent commentaries argue that the socio‐ economic consequences of the pandemic are exposing and exacerbating existing societal inequalities, with the pandemic having a disproportionately negative impact on the lives of more vulnerable members of society (Morgan & Rose, 2020) Amidst these growing concerns, there is a pressing need to develop a robust evidence base, derived from analyses of high‐quality, population‐level data, to determine how the public are adapting to life and the many public‐ health restrictions imposed throughout the course of the pandemic (Davis, 2020). A broad array of standardised measures were used to capture the prevalence of common mental disorders including major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as other important experiences such as somatisation and paranoia (McBride et al, 2020) These core measures facilitate the assessment of a variety of mental disorders and experiences commonly investigated in previous infectious respiratory disease outbreaks (Cheng, 2004; Gardner & Moallef, 2015). They offer a more detailed interrogation of these diagnostic constructs compared to other leading national longitudinal mental‐health studies currently being conducted during the pandemic, which have, in many cases, relied on established but general measures of psychological distress (Pierce, Hope, et al, 2020) or very short screening tools for MDD and GAD (Henderson et al, 2020)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
