Abstract
With the fluctuations in anxious and depressive symptomatology accompanied by the pandemic crises, studies on the trajectories of these symptom domains are warranted to monitor the development of mental health problems in the population. This pre-registered longitudinal study examines stable factors and mechanistic processes covarying with the trajectory of anxiety and depressive symptoms using linear-mixed effects models in 4936 adults from the pandemic’s onset to four months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway. Prevalence estimates of moderate to severe levels of clinically impairing symptoms of anxiety and depression revealed high but reduced occurrence four months into the pandemic where social distancing protocols were substantially lightened in severity, revealing associations between symptoms and viral mitigation protocols after stringent control of plausible confounders. Subgroups at risk at the onset of the pandemic sustained their relative position compared to their counterparts four months into the pandemic, indicating prolonged suffering of these subgroups. Among mechanistic processes, key differences were identified regarding the trajectory of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Physical exercise was associated with long-term but not momentaneous alleviations in anxiety. In contrast, reductions in depressive symptoms were associated with both the simultaneous exertion as well as dose-increases in exercise over time. Increased knowledge about how to best cope with pandemic challenges was associated with greater improvement in depressive but not anxiety symptoms. Reductions in maladaptive coping strategies and negative metacognitive beliefs was substantially associated with greater improvement of both anxious and depressive symptomatology. Mechanistic processes divergently relate to the trajectory of depressive and anxious symptomatology, yielding domain-specific information of utility for preventive and interventive efforts aimed at impeding deleterious symptom levels.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-02732-9.
Highlights
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by what scholars term a parallel pandemic consisting of detrimental mental health symptoms (e.g., Yao et al, 2020)
Findings from available studies inspecting the trajectory of change in anxious and depressive symptomatology have shed light on several important risk factors related to unfavorable symptom development in pandemic periods
Knowledge remains scarce concerning actionable mechanistic processes which may be interwoven with the observed changes in anxious and depressive symptomatology during the pandemic, which in turn can provide guidance concerning the adaptation of interventive strategies in mitigating the rise in adverse mental health symptoms
Summary
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by what scholars term a parallel pandemic consisting of detrimental mental health symptoms (e.g., Yao et al, 2020). Forskningsveien 3A, Harald Schjelderups hus, 0373 Oslo, Norway the onset of the pandemic (e.g., Ebrahimi et al, 2021a; Ettman et al, 2020; Salari et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2020) These studies have advanced the pandemic mental health literature by uncovering prevalence rates of anxiety and depression in association with their covariates, their implementation of cross-sectional designs preclude insight concerning the trajectories which these symptom domains follow during pandemics and the factors intertwined with such changes across time. Knowledge remains scarce concerning the mechanistic processes covarying with the drastic changes witnessed in the mental health symptoms of the population To mirror this scarcity, calls have been made for studies to investigate the trajectories of anxious and depressive symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chi et al, 2020; Rossi et al, 2020; Sun et al, 2021). Improved understanding of mechanisms covarying with the alleviation of mental symptoms has further been argued as important from a public health perspective, with elevations in anxiety having the possibility to foster detrimental behavioral responses during viral outbreaks (e.g., Asmundson & Taylor, 2020)
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