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Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

June 3, 2020

Summary

Objective: To examine longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems before and during the COVID-19 crisis in a large-scale population-based study and to identify population subgroups that are psychologically vulnerable during the pandemic. Design and setting: Longitudinal observational population study using data from the 2017 – 2019 and April 2020 waves of Understanding Society, the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), a nationally representative sample of adults in the United Kingdom. Participants: 12,090 men and women with a mean age of 49.9 (range 18 – 92) living in private households in the United Kingdom were drawn from the representative wave 9 (2017 – 2019) sample of the UKHLS and followed up between the 24th and 30th of April 2020. Main outcome measure: Mental health problems were measured using the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12), a validated and widely used measure of common mental health symptoms in population studies. The GHQ-12 score cut-off (score of 3 or more) for “psychiatric caseness” (i.e. likely to present with psychiatric disorder) was used to estimate prevalence of mental health problems. Results: The percentage of participants classified as experiencing mental health problems increased from 23.3% in 2017-2019 to 36.8% in April 2020. In a multivariate mixed effects logistic regression model all population subgroups examined showed statistically significant increases in mental health problems. Increases were most pronounced among young adults, females, and those with a higher level of education. The rise in mental health difficulties was 8.6 percentage points (95% CI: 4.1 to 13.2) greater among those aged 18-34 compared to those aged 50 – 64, 6.9 points (95% CI: 4.0 to 9.8) greater in females compared to males and 4 points (95% CI: 1.2, 6.9) greater amongst those with a university degree compared to others. Additional analyses of the full UKHLS dataset from 2009-2020 showed that the substantial increase in mental health problems observed in April 2020 was unlikely to be due to seasonality effects or year-to-year variation. Conclusion: This study contributes to a rapidly growing evidence base suggesting that mental health problems may have risen substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qd5z7

Subjects

Notes

Open Access preprint
Is referenced by: Public Health England. (2020) 'COVID-19: mental health and wellbeing surveillance report'. London:Public Health England.


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