Heterogeneous mental health development during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom

Lea Ellwardt,Patrick Präg

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95490-w

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the mitigation measures by governments have upended the economic and social lives of many, leading to widespread psychological distress. We explore heterogeneity in trajectories of psychological distress during the pandemic in the United Kingdom and relate this heterogeneity to socio-demographic and health factors. We analyze nine waves of longitudinal, nationally representative survey data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N=15{,}914), covering the period from early 2020 to mid-2021. First, latent class mixture modelling is used to identify trajectories of psychological distress. Second, associations of the trajectories with covariates are tested with multinomial logistic regressions. We find four different trajectories of distress: continuously low, temporarily elevated, repeatedly elevated, and continuously elevated distress. Nearly two fifths of the population experienced severely elevated risks of distress during the pandemic. Long-term distress was highest among younger people, women, people living without a partner, those who had no work or lost income, and those with previous health conditions or COVID-19 symptoms. Given the threat of persistent stress on health, policy measures should be sensitized to the unintended yet far-reaching consequences of non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic and the mitigation measures by governments have upended the economic and social lives of many, leading to widespread psychological distress
We took a perspective similar to those of policy makers and stakeholders by describing which trajectories of psychological distress occurred in the United Kingdom
Our results replicate and extend the findings by Pierce et al.[6], who used a similar model and the same data to study the first lockdown in the UK

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic and the mitigation measures by governments have upended the economic and social lives of many, leading to widespread psychological distress. Average mental health deteriorated for the whole population, and research has examined variation in this deterioration across subpopulations[3,11,12] These subpopulations are typically segmented ex ante in line with theoretical expectations by discrete socio-demographic characteristics, such as social class, ethnicity, or gender. The aim of the present study was, first, to detect the number and prevalences of psychological distress trajectories over the COVID-19 pandemic, and second, to relate these trajectories to individuals’ socio-demographic and health characteristics. People vary both in their susceptibility to pandemic-induced stressors[12,13,14,15] and their ability to successfully cope with them.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion