Psychological Impact of Corona Lockdown in Germany: Changes in Need Satisfaction, Well-Being, Anxiety, and Depression

Abstract

All over the world; measures have been implemented to contain the novel Sars-CoV-2 virus since its outbreak in the beginning of 2020. These measures—among which social distancing and contact restrictions were most prominent—may have an overall effect on people’s psychological well-being. The present study seeks to examine whether lockdown measures affected people’s well-being; anxiety; depressive symptoms during the lockdown and whether these effects could be explained by reduced satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy and relatedness. N = 1086 participants of different ages and educational levels from all over Germany reported strong declines in autonomy and well-being; small declines in relatedness satisfaction; moderate increases in anxiety and depressive symptoms. These effects were stronger for people with moderate to bad subjective overall health. Latent change modeling revealed that, especially, decreases in autonomy satisfaction led to stronger decreases in well-being as well as stronger increases in anxiety and depressive symptoms; whereas decreases in relatedness had much weaker effects. Our results imply differential effects depending on individual preconditions; but also more generally that peoples’ need for autonomy was most strongly affected by the lockdown measures, which should be considered as important information in planning future lockdowns.

COVID-19 Pandemic and the Second Lockdown: The 3rd Wave of the Disease Through the Voice of Youth

“…In a systematic review of the literature, Loades et al ( 2020 ) showed that the COVID-19 virus had an impact on the mental health of adolescents and young adults (AYA), and was particularly associated with depressive and anxious symptoms, a finding confirmed by other authors (Magson et al, 2021 ). Magson and colleagues ( 2021 ) also highlighted that these consequences contribute to a decrease in life satisfaction, reinforcing authors Parola et al ( 2020 ) and Schwinger et al ( 2020 ), the negative effects on AYA's psychological strengths and psychological well-being, respectively. Based on the adolescent well-being model, the domains: (i) good health and optimal nutrition; (ii) connectedness, positive values and contribution to society; (iii) safety and supportive environment; (iv) learning, competence, education, skills and employability; (v) agency and resilience, should be covered (Ross et al, 2020 ), and in the course of COVID-19 many of the areas were affected.…”

Satisfying Students’ Psychological Needs During the COVID-19 Outbreak in German Higher Education Institutions

“…In addition, students have very limited access to social and university activities. In a recent study, Schwinger et al (2020) investigated the effect of lockdown methods on citizens' basic psychological need satisfaction in Germany and found that there were significant declines in the fulfillment of the need for autonomy. The study also showed that autonomy satisfaction was most strongly affected by the lockdown measures and thus associated with the reduction in well-being and the increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.…”

“…Satisfying these needs is vital to individuals' psychological well-being and can fuel motivation and behaviors. Recent empirical work provides evidence implying that through lockdown restrictions, these basic psychological needs cannot be adequately met (e.g., Schwinger et al, 2020), and in turn, it increases the risk of mental health problems.…”

An Oppositional Tolerance Account for Potential Cognitive Deficits Caused by the Discontinuation of Antidepressant Drugs

“…As a consequence of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 4 times as many individuals reported depressive symptoms in the US in June 2020, as compared to the previous year (24.3 vs. 6.5 %) [3]. Other countries, such as Germany [4][5][6], China [7], and Iran [8] seem to follow the same trend.…”