Related Health Factors of Psychological Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain

Abstract

Measures to prevent and contain the COVID-19 health crisis include population confinement, with the consequent isolation and interruption of their usual activities. The aim of the study is to analyse psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, a cross-sectional observational study with a sample of 4180 people over the age of 18 during quarantine was developed. Variables considered were sociodemographic variables, physical symptoms, health conditions, COVID-19 contact history and psychological adjustment. The data were collected through a self-developed questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Bivariate analyses were performed, including Chi-Squared test and Student’s T-test. Predictive ability was calculated through logistic regression. Results obtained showed a high level of psychological distress (72.0%), with a higher percentage in women and people of lower middle age. Statistically significant differences were found in the variable working situation (χ² = 63.139, p ≤ 0.001, V = 0.123) and living with children under the age of 16 (χ² = 7.393, p = 0.007, V = 0.042). The predictive variables with the highest weight were sex (OR = 1.952, 95% IC = (1.667, 2.286)), presence of symptoms (OR = 1.130, 95% CI = (1.074, 1.190)), and having had close contact with an individual with confirmed COVID-19 (OR = 1.241, 95% CI = (1.026, 1.500)). These results could enrich prevention interventions in public health and, in particular, in mental health in similar pandemic situations.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Psychological Status of Palestinian Adults in the West Bank, Palestine; A Cross Sectional Study

“…However many studies showed a quiet interesting mean, percentages, and signi cance values for respondents who became anxious due to COVID-19 pandemic, and almost one-third to half of the respondents in these studies became anxious, with respect to the variation of the sample size for each study (Madani et al, 2020;Qiu et al, 2020) . Besides, younger respondents aged less than 21 years were less likely to have many anxiety signs when compared with older respondents, which is consistent with the ndings of some recent studies (Gómez-Salgado et al, 2020). This might be because that youngers do not have economic responsibilities toward their families and they can occupy their time with many activities make their minds distract from thinking of the disease.…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health: The Role of Locus on Control and Internet Use

“…Greater exposure to COVID-19, such as being infected, is related to higher symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety [ 12 ]. For example, following a COVID-19 diagnosis, individuals report greater distress [ 13 ] and more mental health problems [ 14 ]. A systematic review showed that upon COVID-19 hospital admission, symptoms of anxiety and depression were common, and they persisted in the post-illness stage [ 15 ], consistent with evidence from previous epidemics where individuals suffer from social and mental health problems after they have recovered from the virus, such as post-SARS [ 16 ] or post-Ebola [ 17 , 18 ].…”

“…These potentially detrimental effects of information seeking could perhaps be due to having constant access to information about the pandemic through the Internet, which could have harmful effects [ 4 , 32 ], as well as traditional media not being updated throughout the day with multiple stories on how the disease manifests. The potential harm of information seeking can also be seen among young adults, who are more likely to use the Internet to access information and are more susceptible to psychological symptoms during COVID-19 [ 2 , 4 , 8 , 13 , 32 ].…”

“…Likely those with a more internal locus of control will be more active when using the Internet, but the mental health implications of these are unclear. Finally, we expect greater psychological symptoms among young adults [ 2 , 4 , 8 , 13 , 32 ] and women [ 8 , 11 , 13 , 43 ].…”

Predicting Psychological Distress Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic by Machine Learning: Discrimination and Coping Mechanisms of Korean Immigrants in the U.S.

“…First reported in December 2019, the number of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) cases has rapidly increased, threatening global public health [ 1 ]. As of 6 July 2020, there were more than 11 million confirmed cases and 532,340 confirmed deaths in 216 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared an international public emergency as the result of the COVID-19 outbreak [ 2 ].…”