Understanding the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures: An empirical model of stress

Abstract

Epidemics such as COVID-19 and corresponding containment measures are assumed to cause psychological stress. In a survey during the lockdown in Switzerland (n = 1565), we found substantially increased levels of stress in the population. In particular, individuals who did not agree with the containment measures, as well as those who saw nothing positive in the crisis, experienced high levels of stress. In contrast, individuals who are part of a risk group or who are working in healthcare or in essential shops experienced similar stress levels as the general public. The psychological mechanisms that determine stress, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures, are not yet clear. Thus, we conducted a path analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the psychological mechanisms that lead to stress. Experiencing fear of the disease is a key driver for being worried. Our model further shows that worries about the individual, social, and economic consequences of the crisis, strongly boost stress. The infection rate in the canton (i.e., state) of residence also contributes to stress. Positive thinking and perceived social, organizational, and governmental support mitigate worries and stress. Our findings indicate that containment measures increase worries and stress, especially for those who feel that these measures either are not sufficient or go too far. Thus, highlighting positive aspects of the crisis and convincing people of the effectiveness and necessity of mitigation measures can, not only promote compliance, but also reduce stress. Our model suggests that people who feel protected by the authorities have fewer worries, which can, in turn, limit the negative impact of the crisis on mental health.

Impact of COVID-19 First Wave on Psychological and Psychosocial Dimensions: A Systematic Review

“…Stress-related responses are cognitive, emotional, behavioural and physiological [74,275]. During the first wave, the pandemic had an unprecedented impact on social lives around the world and can be viewed as a global stressor induced, beyond the risk for health, by the social isolation and distancing measures [276][277][278]. There is a lack of psychological literature related to epidemics (e.g., Ebola, Swine flu) or global pandemics; the last pandemic was the Spanish Flu of 1918, but there is not enough research about this [6].…”

“…Protective factors for stress were associated with: resilience [259,311], greater social connectedness [276], seeking information on COVID-19 [74,89,183], up-to-date and accurate health information [186], functional coping styles (i.e., planning, religion) [74,245], internal locus of control [74], perception of being able to avoid the virus [74], satisfaction with life [237], personality traits (high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, high emotional stability and high extroversion) [74], less exposure to COVID-19 [233,273], and agreed/confidence with government measures [186,216,277]. Moreover, individuals who reported high levels of optimism, and reported that the lockdown situation also had positive aspects, had lower stress levels [277,312,313].…”

“…Age: results showed a significant impact of age on stress levels [74]. A lot of papers reported higher stress and PTSD levels among the younger individuals rather than the older one [7,75,118,187,243,247,258,260,277,308,[317][318][319][320]. These results are not found within the medical staff sample [87].…”

“…Gender: numerous articles have reported a significant relation between gender and stress, with females reporting higher levels of stress and PTSD than males [10,74,186,187,220,221,225,237,242,243,247,252,259,260,277,281,282,309,317,[319][320][321][322], in particular, women who have been in direct contact with a COVID-19 patient [260], or those who have a recent exposure history in Wuhan [282]. Accordingly to Newby and colleagues [310], not only women, but also those who identify as non-binary or with a different gender were associated with higher self-reported stress.…”

Emotional Situation of Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany: Results from the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring Study (COSMO)

“…Regarding predicting context factors, published evidence has shown that restrictive pandemic measures during the COVID-19 pandemic affected people under 30 more severely than older ones, specifically impacting the mental health of young parents and children. Older children, however, seemed to be less negatively influenced than younger children [ 4 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Naturally, the parental age is also strongly correlated with the age of the children, so that older parents tend to have older children, which seemed to be a protective factor for children’s mental health.…”