Anxiety and Depression in Belgium during the First 15 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

Bruggeman, Helena; Smith, Pierre; Berete, Finaba; Demarest, Stefaan; Hermans, Lize; Braekman, Elise; Charafeddine, Rana; Drieskens, Sabine; Ridder, Karin De; Gisle, Lydia

doi:10.3390/bs12050141

Cited by 16 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…However, although time trends were similar for all population subgroups, higher levels of both anxiety and depression were generally found in young people. 25 Conversely, a longitudinal study conducted among 988 adults in Argentina showed a gradual increase in anxiety and depression between August 2020 and April 2021. 26 Again, young adults had higher prevalence rates of symptoms than other age groups.…”

Section: Jama Network Open | Psychiatrymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…After gender-and degree-standardization, prevalence rates were slightly lower ( respectively). The medians (IQRs) of the scores were 45 for the STAI Y-2 (anxiety), 8 (4-13) for the BDI-13 (depression), 20 (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26) for the PSS-10 (stress), and 22 (10-37) for the PCL-5 (PTSD).…”

Section: Mental Health Outcomes and Associated Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few longitudinal studies have been conducted in the general population over a period like that of our study. A study of 1838 Belgian adults, conducted from April 2020 to June 2021, 25 showed that the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety and depression was higher in times of stricter policy measures. This study did not include student status.…”

Section: Jama Network Open | Psychiatrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental Health Symptoms of University Students 15 Months After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in France

Wathelet

Hörn

Creupelandt³

et al. 2022

JAMA Netw Open

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ImportanceThe Conséquences de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur la santé mentale des étudiants (COSAMe) survey was conducted among university students in France during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that although there was a slight decrease in anxiety, depression, and stress between the first lockdown (T1) and 1 month after it ended (T2), the prevalence of suicidal ideation had increased between these periods and 1 in 5 students had probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at T2. These results emphasize the need to explore the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.ObjectivesTo measure the prevalence of mental health symptoms among university students in France 15 months after the first lockdown (T3) and to identify factors associated with outcomes.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis cross-sectional study reports data from the third measurement time of the repeated COSAMe survey, which took place from July 21 to August 31, 2021, through an online questionnaire sent to all French university students.Main Outcomes and MeasuresThe prevalence of suicidal thoughts, PTSD (PTSD Checklist for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [Fifth Edition] [PCL-5]), stress (Perceived Stress Scale), anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory) at T3 were gender- and degree-standardized and compared with prevalence rates at T1 and T2. Multivariable logistic regression analyses identified risk factors.ResultsA total of 44 898 students completed the questionnaires. They were mainly women (31 728 [70.7%]), and the median (IQR) age was 19 (18-21) years. Standardized prevalence rates of stress, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and PTSD were 20.6% (95% CI, 20.2%-21.0%), 23.7% (95% CI, 23.3%-24.1%), 15.4% (95% CI, 15.1%-15.8%), 13.8% (95% CI, 13.5%-14.2%), and 29.8% (95% CI, 29.4%-30.2%), respectively. Compared with the decreased prevalence rates at T2, there was an increase at T3 for stress (2.5% increase), anxiety (13.9% increase), and depression (22.2% increase). The prevalence of suicidal ideation continued to increase from T1 (10.6%) to T3 (13.8%), and the prevalence of probable PTSD increased from 1 in 5 students to 1 in 3 students between T2 and T3. Female and nonbinary participants; participants without children and living in an urban area; and those with financial difficulties, a chronic condition, psychiatric history, COVID-19 history, social isolation, and low perceived quality of information received were at risk of all poor outcomes at T3 (eg, stress among women: adjusted OR, 2.18; 95% CI, 2.05-2.31; suicidal thoughts among nonbinary respondents: adjusted OR, 5.09; 95% CI, 4.32-5.99; anxiety among students with children: adjusted OR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.56-0.81; depression among students living in a rural area: adjusted OR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.75-0.85).Conclusions and RelevanceThese results suggest severe long-lasting consequences associated with the pandemic on the mental health of students. Prevention and care access should be a priority.

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Section: Jama Network Open | Psychiatrymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Mental Health Outcomes and Associated Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Jama Network Open | Psychiatrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental Health Symptoms of University Students 15 Months After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in France

Wathelet

Hörn

Creupelandt³

et al. 2022

JAMA Netw Open

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In addition, some data of the COVID-19 health surveys were presented in the Mental health dashboard, an online tool that brings together several sources of data on the mental health of the general population (46). Lastly, the data of the COVID-19 health surveys were used in multiple scienti c publications (7,9,11,47,48).…”

Section: 2 Publication Of the Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data collection in pandemic times: the case of the Belgian COVID-19 Health surveys

Braekman

Charafeddine

Berete

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

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Background Survey data were needed to assess the mental and social health, health related behaviors and compliance with preventive measures of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the pandemic challenged classical survey methods. Time and budgetary constraints at the beginning of the pandemic led to ad hoc recruitment of participants and easily manageable data collection modes. This paper describes the methodological choices and results in terms of participation for the COVID-19 health surveys conducted in Belgium. Methods The COVID-19 health surveys refer to a series of ten non-probabilistic web surveys organized between April 2020 and March 2022. The applied recruitment strategies were diverse including, amongst others, a launch through the website and the social media of the organizing research institute. In addition, the survey links were shared in articles published in the national press and participants were requested to share the surveys in their network. Furthermore, participants were asked consent to be recontacted for next survey editions using e-mail invitations. Results These mixed approaches allowed to reach a substantial number of participants per edition ranging from 49339 in survey 1 to 13882 in survey 10. In addition, a longitudinal component was created; a large share of the same individuals were followed up over time; 12599 participants completed at least 5 surveys. There were, however, sex, age, educational level and regional differences in participation. Post-stratification weighting on socio-demographic factors was applied to at least partly take this into account. Conclusion The COVID-19 health surveys allowed rapid data collection after the onset of the pandemic. Data from these non-probability web surveys had their limitations in terms of representativeness due to self-selection but were an important information source as there were few alternatives. Moreover, by following-up the same individuals over time it was possible to study the effect of the different crisis phases on, amongst others, the mental health. It is important to draw lessons from these experiences: initiatives in order to create a survey infrastructure better equipped for future crises are needed.

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“…On the one hand, they should convey correct knowledge of epidemic prevention and guide the public to protect themselves from COVID-19 [ 9 ]; on the other hand, they should disseminate the true situation of the epidemic to the public. Therefore, the objectivity and impartiality of the news media are particularly important [ 10 , 11 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Media Bias and Factors Affecting the Impartiality of News Agencies during COVID-19

Luo

Han

et al. 2022

Behavioral Sciences

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When COVID-19 was raging around the world, people were more fearful and anxious. In this context, the media should uphold impartiality and shoulder the responsibility of eliminating misinformation. Therefore, our research adopted sentiment analysis technologies to analyze the impartiality of news agencies and analyzed the factors that affect the impartiality of COVID-19-related articles about various countries. The SentiWordNet3.0 and bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) models were employed to analyze the articles and visualize the data. The following conclusions were redrawn in our research. During the pandemic, articles of some news agencies were not objective; the impartiality of news agencies was related to the reliability of news agencies instead of the bias of news agencies; there were obvious differences in the coverage and positivity of international news agencies to report the performance of COVID-19 prevention and control in different countries.

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Anxiety and Depression in Belgium during the First 15 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

Cited by 16 publications

References 73 publications

Mental Health Symptoms of University Students 15 Months After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in France

Mental Health Symptoms of University Students 15 Months After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in France

Data collection in pandemic times: the case of the Belgian COVID-19 Health surveys

Media Bias and Factors Affecting the Impartiality of News Agencies during COVID-19

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