Relationship between attitudes toward COVID-19 infection, depression and anxiety: a cross-sectional survey in Japan

Abstract

Background Although negative attitudes are known to develop with experiences of COVID-19 infection, it remains unclear whether such attitudes contribute to depression and anxiety as sequelae of COVID-19. We aimed to investigate the relationships between attitude towards COVID-19 infection and post-COVID-19 depression and anxiety. Methods A cross-sectional survey of COVID-19 recovered patients was conducted from July to September 2021 in Japan. Outcome variables, depression and anxiety were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7); scores of 10 and above were identified as having symptoms of depression and anxiety, respectively. Exposure variables were whether participants were experiencing the following attitude strongly: threat to life due to COVID-19 infection, helplessness regarding COVID-19 infection, blaming a third party who did not restrain from going outside, blaming themselves for their COVID-19 infection, worry about spreading the infection to others, and self-stigma (Self-Stigma Scale-Short). Modified Poisson regression analyses were performed to analyze the findings. Results A total of 6016 responses were included in the analyses. The proportion of depression was 19.88%, and anxiety was 11.47%. The threat of life due to COVID-19 infection, helplessness regarding COVID-19 infection, blaming oneself for their COVID-19 infection, and self-stigma were significantly associated with depression and anxiety after adjusting covariates. Blaming the third party who did not restrain from going outside was associated with anxiety. There was no association between the worry about spreading infection to others and depression or anxiety. Conclusion Negative attitudes, including self-stigma with the experience of COVID-19 infection, were related to depression and anxiety. Further studies confirming whether countermeasures for preventing or decreasing the negative attitude towards COVID-19 infection mitigate these symptoms are needed.

Psychological distress after COVID-19 recovery and subsequent prolonged post-acute sequelae of COVID-19: A longitudinal study with 1-year follow-up in Japan

“…Inaddition to the mental health problems observed before the post-acute phase[15,18–20,22,23,66], psychological distress after PASC becomes apparent may lead to prolonged PASC. COVID-19 survivors often face discrimination, negative thoughts about COVID-19, and experience unemployment after recovery, which can exacerbate mental health problems [28,29][67][68]. These factors may, in turn, lead to prolonged PASC due to resultant mental health problems.…”

“…Individuals who recover from COVID-19 are at risk of developing new mental health problems[4,24–27]. COVID-19-related experiences, such as perceived discrimination and negative thoughts about the infection, were reported to be associated with mental health problems, independent of pre-existing mental health problems[28,29]. Several cross-sectional studies also suggest that preceding PASC affects mental health after recovery[30–34], and longitudinal studies have suggested that presence of PASC predicts mental health problems[35,36].…”

Physical exercise/sports ameliorate the internet addiction from college students during the pandemic of COVID-19 in China

“…To investigate the association between exercise participation and Internet Addiction (IA), we conducted Modified Poisson regression analysis ( 20 , 21 ). This analysis allowed us to examine the relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of the dependent variable (DV) in relation to the independent variables (IV) ( 22 ).…”

Difference in the risk of discrimination on psychological distress experienced by early wave infected and late wave infected COVID-19 survivors in Japan

“…Third, the experiences of participants and families being maligned were defined as those who answered “yes” to the question “Have you or your family ever been maligned by someone as a result of your infection status?”. The variables associated with both outcome variables and exposure variables were used as covariates: sex (male, female, others) 11 , 32 , age group (20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, 80–89, ≥ 90) 11 , 33 – 35 , level of education (junior high school, high school, vocational school or junior college, university, and postgraduate school) 11 , 36 , 37 , job status (employed and unemployed) 33 , 36 , 38 , Cohabitant status (living alone and living together) 11 , 35 , duration after infection 5 , 39 , hospitalization status at infection (hospitalized and not hospitalized) 3 , 40 . Sex was later converted to the binary variable by merging females and others.…”