COVID-19 vaccines and mental distress

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic brought about large increases in mental distress. The uptake of COVID-19 vaccines is expected to significantly reduce health risks, improve economic and social outcomes, with potential benefits to mental health. Purpose To examine short-term changes in mental distress following the receipt of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Methods Participants included 8,003 adults from the address-based sampled, nationally representative Understanding America Study (UAS), surveyed at regular intervals between March 10, 2020, and March 31, 2021 who completed at least two waves of the survey. Respondents answered questions about COVID-19 vaccine status and self-reported mental distress as measured with the four-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4). Fixed-effects regression models were used to identify the change in PHQ-4 scores and categorical indicators of mental distress resulting from the application of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Results People who were vaccinated between December 2020 and March 2021 reported decreased mental distress levels in the surveys conducted after receiving the first dose. The fixed-effects estimates show an average effect of receiving the vaccine equivalent to 4% of the standard deviation of PHQ-4 scores (p-value<0.01), a reduction in 1 percentage point (4% reduction from the baseline level) in the probability of being at least mildly depressed, and of 0.7 percentage points (15% reduction from the baseline level) in the probability of being severely depressed (p-value = 0.06). Conclusions Getting the first dose of COVID-19 resulted in significant improvements in mental health, beyond improvements already achieved since mental distress peaked in the spring of 2020.

Compliance Indicators of COVID-19 Prevention and Vaccines Hesitancy in Kenya: A Random-Effects Endogenous Probit Model

“…The number of days with hopeful feelings decreased the two indicators of prevention compliance and willingness to take vaccines. Feelings of hope may result from evaluation of one's vulnerability to the pandemic [88,89]. Finally, in line with expectations, the number of days with some physical reactions increased the willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines.…”

The Impact of the COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution on Mental Health Outcomes

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has had both direct health effects from COVID-19 infection and mortality, but also secondary health impacts on behavior and mental health (Breslau et al 2021;Ettman et al 2020). Along with the direct benefits of reducing COVID-19 infection risk, COVID-19 vaccines can also address secondary risks of the pandemic, including mental health distress (Perez-Arce et al 2021). In this paper, we use data from a national survey collected to estimate how COVID-19 vaccination impacts anxiety and depression symptoms.…”

“…Vaccinated individuals face dramatically lower risks of COVID-19 infection and lower severity of COVID-19 illness (Polack et al 2020;Baden et al 2021;Sadoff et al 2021;Thomas et al 2021;Bajema et al 2021). This direct impact of vaccines reduces uncertainty about the futurewhat will happen if I get infectedwhich in turn might reduce a vaccinated person's anxiety or depression associated with fears of infection risk (Perez-Arce et al 2021). Vaccinations can also have spillover effects.…”

COVID vaccination and mental health: An Indian perspective

“…( Velumani et al, 2021 , Dodd et al, 2021 , Al-Amer et al, 2021 , Dodd et al, 2020 , Banerjee et al, 2021 , Brewer and Abad, 2021 , Varshney et al, 2021 , Mazereel et al, 2021 , Kumar et al, 2021 , Krishnamoorthy et al, 2020 , Arce et al, 2021 )…”