Despite concerns that stay-at-home orders and other government efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 early in the pandemic would cause lasting damage to people’s mental health, research published by the American Association of Psychology found that state restrictions in the first semester of the pandemic were not related to worse mental health.
Pandemic restrictions were not related to psychological distress
Instead, people with personal exposure to the virus and those who consumed several hours of COVID-19-related media per day were the most likely to experience distress, loneliness, and traumatic stress symptoms.
The findings were published in the journal Health Psychology .
“Over the past decades, our team has been examining the psychological impact of large-scale disasters on the population. In February 2020, we realized that the novel coronavirus, as it was called at the time, would likely have an effect on the US population in the coming months,” said lead author Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology, medicine, and public health at the University of California Irvine. “We were particularly interested in the potential negative mental health effects of the associated restrictions imposed on people during the pandemic, despite their potential to minimize the spread of the disease.”
Researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 6,500 participants at the beginning of the pandemic from March 18 to April 18, 2020, then surveyed nearly 5,600 of the same participants about six months later, from September 26 to Oct. 16, to measure how their mental health and exposure to the virus changed over the course of the pandemic.
Respondents answered questions about symptoms of distress, loneliness, and traumatic stress (acute and post-traumatic stress) they experienced in the previous week; whether they had contracted COVID-19; how many people they knew had come into contact with the virus or died from COVID-19; and how many hours on average they spent daily over the past week consuming pandemic-related news across traditional media, online news sources, and social media platforms. The researchers then compared their responses to data about the spread of COVID-19 and government mitigation efforts, such as school closures and stay-at-home orders in each respondent’s state.
The researchers found that overall, participants experienced more loneliness and symptoms of global distress, such as depression and anxiety, over the course of the six months, but their distress was not significantly related to state-level restrictions . Instead, personal experiences with COVID (degree of illness, losses), along with the amount of pandemic media people were exposed to, were stronger predictors of psychological symptoms than state-level restrictions (mask mandates , closures, etc.) or case rates or mortality rates.
Participants who responded that they had contracted COVID-19 in the first six months of the pandemic were the most likely to report mental health problems. Knowing someone who died from COVID-19 or someone who had contracted COVID-19 was also significantly related to distress, loneliness, and traumatic stress symptoms, according to Rebecca Thompson, PhD, first author of the report and a postdoctoral fellow at UC Irvine.
“Because a strong predictor of distress in our study was personal grief (knowing someone who had been very sick or died was much more stressful than the presence of state-level restrictions), future waves of COVID-19 and other potential pandemics must be addressed by targeted interventions to prevent loss of life,” Thompson said. “Given this work, we would likely expect similar distress responses in future pandemics, highlighting the importance of public health initiatives to slow the spread of disease in our communities.”
More hours of exposure to pandemic-related media coverage were also significantly related to increased distress symptoms over time.
“During the first year of the pandemic, it was all bad news all the time,” Silver said. “Repeated exposure to such content is unlikely to have psychological benefits.”
In the case of future disasters or traumatic events, Silver recommends that people monitor the degree to which they become immersed in bad news (e.g., avoid "doom scrolling") and consider specific times to check the news throughout the day. throughout the day.
“You can stay informed without being overwhelmed by a constant barrage of bad news,” Silver said.
