Long-term psychological impact of the pandemic COVID-19 : Identification of high-risk groups and assessment of precautionary measures five months after the first wave of restrictions was lifted

Copyright: © 2024 Solomou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited..

Critical facets of our lives have been disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak for almost three years. During this time, there has been a lot of clinical and research interest in issues related to mental health. However, few have examined the pandemic's long-term psychological effects. The aims of the present study were to assess the long-term psychological impact of the pandemic COVID -19, five months after the first wave restriction measures were lifted, to identify high-risk groups and to address the use of precautionary measures (PM). Information about sociodemographic characteristics, mental health, coping mechanisms, and compliance with precautionary measures (PM) were all gathered in Cyprus through an anonymous online survey. The poll was completed by 1128 people (73% of whom were female). For the purposes of the present study, descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling were used. 32.3% of participants experienced moderate-to-severe anxiety symptoms, where 16.4% and 23% reported moderate-to-severe depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms respectively. Lower levels of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms as well as greater compliance to PM were linked to higher levels of resilience. Additionally, subgroups of participants, at a higher risk for negative psychological effects were identified, such as women and young adults. Our findings demonstrate the long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and provide guidance on how to deal with similar situations. It also raises questions about the concurrent effects on people with the long COVID syndrome.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:4

Enthalten in:

PLOS global public health - 4(2024), 2 vom: 05., Seite e0002847

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Solomou, Ioulia [VerfasserIn]
Nikolaou, Flora [VerfasserIn]
Michaelides, Michalis P [VerfasserIn]
Constantinidou, Fofi [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 25.02.2024

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.1371/journal.pgph.0002847

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM368841413