Psychological Outcomes Associated with Stay-at-Home Orders and the Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Daily Life

Matthew T Tull, Keith A Edmonds, Kayla M Scamaldo, Julia R Richmond, Jason P Rose, Kim L Gratz, Matthew T Tull, Keith A Edmonds, Kayla M Scamaldo, Julia R Richmond, Jason P Rose, Kim L Gratz

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the widespread implementation of extraordinary physical distancing interventions (e.g., stay-at-home orders) to slow the spread of the virus. Although vital, these interventions may be socially and economically disruptive, contributing to adverse psychological outcomes. This study examined relations of both stay-at-home orders and the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life to psychological outcomes (depression, health anxiety, financial worry, social support, and loneliness) in a nationwide U.S. community adult sample (N = 500; 47% women, mean age = 40). Participants completed questionnaires assessing psychological outcomes, stay-at-home order status, and COVID-19's impact on their daily life. Being under a stay-at-home order was associated with greater health anxiety, financial worry, and loneliness. Moreover, the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life was positively associated with health anxiety, financial worry, and social support, but negatively associated with loneliness. Findings highlight the importance of social connection to mitigate negative psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Anxiety; Coronavirus; Health anxiety; Loneliness, Social support.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest Authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

References

    1. Abramowitz JS, Deacon BJ, Valentiner DP. The Short Health Anxiety Inventory: Psychometric properties and construct validity in a non-clinical sample. Cognit. Ther. Res. 2007;31:871–883.
    1. Ahmed F, Zviedrite N, Uzicanin A. Effectiveness of workplace social distancing measures in reducing influenza transmission: A systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2018;18:518.
    1. Åkerlind I, Hörnquist JO. Loneliness and alcohol abuse: A review of evidences of an interplay. Soc. Sci. Med. 1992;34:405–414.
    1. Altemus M. Sex differences in depression and anxiety disorders: potential biological determinants. Horm. Behav. 2006;50:534–538.
    1. Asmundson GJ, Taylor S. How health anxiety influences responses to viral outbreaks like COVID-19: What all decision-makers, health authorities, and health care professionals need to know. J. Anxiety Disord. 2020;71
    1. Borys S, Perlman D. Gender differences in loneliness. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 1985;11:63–74.
    1. Brooks SK, Webster RK., Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Greenberg N, Rubin GJ. The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. Lancet. 2020;395:912–920.
    1. Buhrmester M, Kwang T, Gosling SD. Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 2011;6:3–5.
    1. Calati R, Ferrari C, Brittner M, Oasi O, Olié E, Carvalho AF, Courtet P. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors and social isolation: A narrative review of the literature. J. Affect. Disord. 2019;245:653–667.
    1. Calo-Blanco A, Kovářík J, Mengel F, Romero JG. Natural disasters and indicators of social cohesion. PloS one. 2017;12
    1. Cao W, Fang Z, Hou G, Han M, Xu X, Dong J, Zheng J. The psychological impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on college students in China. Psychiatry Res. 2020;287
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020. Coronavirus (COVID-19). .
    1. Chen WC, Huang AS, Chuang JH, Chiu CC, Kuo HS. Social and economic impact of school closure resulting from pandemic influenza A/H1N1. J. Infect. 2011;62:200–203.
    1. Christensen H, Jorm AF, Mackinnon AJ, Korten AE, Jacomb PA, Henderson AS, Rodgers B. Age differences in depression and anxiety symptoms: a structural equation modelling analysis of data from a general population sample. Psychol. Med. 1999;29:325–339.
    1. Courtet P, Olié E, Debien C, Vaiva G. Keep socially (but not physically) connected and carry on: Preventing suicide in the age of COVID-19. J. Clin. Psychiatry. 2020;81 20com13370.
    1. Dowd JB, Andriano L, Brazel DM, Rotondi V, Block P, Ding X, Mills MC. Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2020;117:9696–9698.
    1. Faul F, Erdfelder E, Buchner A, Lang AG. Statistical power analyses using G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behav. Res. Meth. 2009;41:1149–1160.
    1. Flaxman S, Mishra S, Gandy A, Unwin HJT, Coupland H, Mellan T, Bhatt S. Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team; London: 2020. Estimating the number of infections and impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries. March 30.
    1. Hawdon J, Ryan J. Social relations that generate and sustain solidarity after a mass tragedy. Soc. Forces. 2011;89:1363–1384.
    1. Hawryluck L, Gold WL, Robinson S, Pogorski S, Galea S, Styra R. SARS control and psychological effects of quarantine, Toronto, Canada. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 2004;10:1206–1212.
    1. Hilton JM, Devall EL. The Family Economic Strain Scale: Development and evaluation of the instrument with single-and two-parent families. J. Fam. Econ. Issues. 1997;18:247–271.
    1. Jackson C, Mangtani P, Hawker J, Olowokure B, Vynnycky E. The effects of school closures on influenza outbreaks and pandemics: Systematic review of simulation studies. PLoS One. 2014;9:e97297.
    1. Joiner TA, Ribeiro JD, Silva C. Nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidal behavior, and their co-occurrence as viewed through the lens of the interpersonal theory of suicide. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 2012;21:342–347.
    1. Jones JH, Salathe M. Early assessment of anxiety and behavioral response to novel swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) PLoS One. 2009;4:e8032.
    1. Linton M, Kobayashi T, Yang Y, Hayashi K, Akhmetzhanov AR, Jung S, Yuan B, Kinoshita R, Nishiura H. Incubation period and other epidemiological characteristics of 2019 novel coronavirus infections with right truncation: A statistical analysis of publicly available case data. J. Clin. Med. 2020;9:538.
    1. Lovibond PF, Lovibond SH. The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behav. Res. Ther. 1995;33:335–343.
    1. Luhmann M, Hawkley LC. Age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. Dev. Psychol. 2016;52:943–959.
    1. Mervosh S, Lu D, Swales V. The New York Times; 2020. See which states and cities have told residents to stay at home. April 7.
    1. Reger MA, Stanley IH, Joiner TE. Suicide mortality and coronavirus disease 2019- A perfect storm? JAMA Psychiatry. 2020 doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.1060. Published online April 10, 2020.
    1. Russell DW. UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. J. Pers. Assess. 1996;66:20–40.
    1. Salkovskis PM, Rimes KA, Warwick HMC, Clark DM. The Health Anxiety Inventory: Development and validation of scales for the measurement of health anxiety and hypochondriasis. Psychol. Med. 2002;32:843–853.
    1. Shereen MA, Khan S, Kazmi A, Bashir N, Siddique B. COVID-19 infection: Origin, transmission, and characteristics of human coronaviruses. J. Adv. Res. 2020;24:91–98.
    1. Tausczik Y, Faasse K, Pennebaker JW, Petrie KJ. Public anxiety and information seeking following the H1N1 outbreak: blogs, newspaper articles, and Wikipedia visits. Health Commun. 2012;27:179–185.
    1. Thakkar N, Burstein R, Hu H, Selvajar P, Klein D, 2020. Social distancing and mobility reductions have reduced COVID-19 transmission in King County, WA. Report prepared by Institute for Disease Modeling. Published online March 29, 2020. Retrieved from.
    1. Thunström L, Newbold SC, Finnoff SC, Ashworth M, Shogren JF. The benefits and costs of flattening the curve for COVID-19. SSRN Electronic Journal. 2020:1–17.
    1. Wang C, Riyu P, Wan X, Tan Y, Xu L, Ho CS, Ho RC. Immediate psychological responses and associated factors during the initial stage of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic among the general population in China. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2020;17:1729.
    1. Wenham C, Smith J, Morgan R. COVID-19: The gendered impacts of the outbreak. Lancet. 2020;395:846–848.
    1. Wheaton MG, Abramowitz JS, Berman NC, Fabricant LE, Olatunji BO. Psychological predictors of anxiety in response to the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic. Cognit. Ther. Res. 2012;36:210–218.
    1. World Health Organization, 2020. Rolling updates on coronavirus disease (COVID-19). .
    1. Zhang SX, Wang Y, Rauch A, Wei F. Unprecedented disruption of lives and work: Health, distress, and life satisfaction of working adults in China one month into the COVID-19 outbreak. Psychiatry Res. 2020;288
    1. Zimet GD, Dahlem NW, Zimet SG, Farley GK. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. J. Pers. Assess. 1988;52:30–41.

Source: PubMed

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

3
Subscribe