Psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study of online help-seeking Canadian men

Abstract

Purpose:The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the lives of men. The present study investigated psychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on a help-seeking sample of Canadian men, focusing on diverse aspects of their psychosocial well-being. Methods: A cross-sectional, open survey study design was used. Canadian adult men who were visiting an eHealth depression resource (HeadsUpGuys.org) were recruited to complete an online survey. Descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations for continuous variables and frequency and percentages for categorical variables, were used to summarize survey responses. Regression analysis was utilized to identify factors associated with various mental health indicators (anxiety, depression, fear of COVID-19, suicidality). The Patient Health Questionnaire-4, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and item 9 (suicidality item) from the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were used to assess the mental health indicators. Results: A total of 434 men completed the study. Most respondents (79.3%; N = 344) indicated that their mental health was negatively affected by COVID-19, and two-thirds (65.5%; N = 284) conveyed that government-imposed physical distancing measures had negatively affected their mental health. Half the sample (51.2%; N = 222) reported at least moderate financial stress due to COVID-19. Nearly a third of respondents (31.1%; N = 135) reported that their current living situation has had a considerable or severe negative impact on their mental health since COVID-19. About two-fifths (37.7%; N = 94) of men felt that COVID-19 has had a negative impact on their relationship with their intimate partner. Nearly a third of respondents who were in a relationship (30.9%; N = 77) reported that they engaged in some type of abuse (primarily verbal abuse, 22.9%; N = 57) toward their intimate partner during COVID-19, and more than a quarter (27.3%; N = 68) reported being abused by their intimate partner (also primarily verbal abuse, 22.5%; N = 56). Just under half (42.2%; N = 183) of the respondents indicated experiencing suicidal ideation. Conclusion:These findings can help inform providers of health services to Canadian men, as well as policies that will be implemented during subsequent waves of COVID-19 or during future infectious outbreaks.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Higher Education: Characterizing the Psychosocial Context of the Positive and Negative Affective States Using Classification and Regression Trees

“…The aim of this research was to analyze the emotional impact of the pandemic on students, teachers, and administrative staff, and the extent to which the psychosocial aspects are able to characterize their affective states. In this sense, our research provides a global overview, analyzing the extent to which sociodemographic variables (Liang et al, 2020 ; Losada-Baltar et al, 2020 ; González-Tovar and Hernández-Rodríguez, 2021 ), the impact of COVID on the subjects' environment (Sandín et al, 2020 ), the psychosocial context of coexistence and perceived social support (Losada-Baltar et al, 2020 ; Sandín et al, 2020 ; Ogrodniczuk et al, 2021 ), characteristics related to the physical context during the quarantine (Sandín et al, 2020 ), labor conditions (Sandín et al, 2020 ; Zurlo et al, 2020 ). and the work-life balance (Bhumika., 2020 ; Wan Mohd Yunus, 2021 ) can characterize the emotional states of the subjects during the quarantine (Sandín et al, 2020 ; González-Tovar and Hernández-Rodríguez, 2021 ).…”

Investigating COVID‐19 stress and coping: Substance use and behavioural disengagement

“…There are examples from many countries highlighting a widespread deterioration in mental health. For example, Canadians were experiencing a decline in their mental health and coping due to COVID‐19 (Jenkins et al, 2021 ) and Ogrodniczuk et al ( 2021 ) found that 79.3% of Canadian men indicated that COVID‐19 negatively affected their mental health. Anxiety screenings, which consist of individuals' responses to online questions about self‐reported mental illness symptoms were 93% higher in the United States than pre‐pandemic levels (Mental Health America, 2020 ) and over 40% of the population in Italy and the United Kingdom were at risk for mental illness, defined as the conditional probability of being under high stress, anxiety and depression given economic vulnerability and negative economic shock (Codagnone et al, 2020 ).…”

Prevalence of stress and depression and associated factors among women seeking a first-trimester induced abortion in China: A cross-sectional study

“…Importantly, the study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though a small number of COVID-19 cases existed in Beijing during the survey period [48], and study participants were limited to those who were not infected or did not have a COVID-19 infection history. The enforcement of COVID related measures such as closing borders or mandatory quarantine could potentially impact women's daily activities [49], the support resources at their disposal [50], as well as their actual abortion experience and associated psychological responses [51]. To determine the generalizability of our ndings, we subsequently compared demographic and reproductive characteristics of women included in this study to a national cross-sectional study of 79,954 women in China who had an induced abortion in 2013 (pre-COVID).…”