More Adults Reporting Elevated Depressive Symptoms More Than Year Into Pandemic

The percentage of U.S. adults reporting symptoms of depression has not stopped rising since the pandemic began, according tosurvey data published Monday inThe Lancet Regional Health – Americas. Those most likely to report elevated depressive symptoms tended to have less income and a greater number of COVID-related stressors, including the death of someone close to COVID-19, loss of employment, and/or challenges securing childcare.“Typically, we would expect depression to peak following the traumatic event and then lower over time,” senior author Sandro Galea M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H., of Boston University School of Public Health said in anews release. “Instead, we found that 12 months into the pandemic, levels of depression remained high.”Lead author Catherine Ettman, a doctoral candidate at Brown University, Galea, and colleagues analyzed data from two waves of the COVID-19 and Life Stressors Impact on Mental Health and Well-being study. The first survey included 1,441 respondents (aged 18 and older) and was conducted from March 31 to April 13, 2020, when much of the United States was under stay-at-home advisories. The second survey was conducted with the same group one year later, from March 23 to April 19, 2021, and included 1,161 respondents.At both time points, the participants filled out the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and answered questions about their stressful experiences. The authors defined elevated depressive symptoms as a PHQ-9 score of ≥10 and...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: COVID-19 COVID-19 and Life Stressors Impact on Mental Health and Well-being study depression income pandemic The Lancet Regional Health – Americas Source Type: research