The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on depression and anxiety symptoms: Findings from the United Arab Emirates Healthy Future (UAEHFS) cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Significant concerns about mental health were raised during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms among the participants of the United Arab Emirates Healthy Future Study (UAEHFS); a national cohort study. We further explored the change in the prevalence of depression symptoms among those with comparable pre-pandemic data. METHODS: A sample of UAEHFS participants were invited to complete a COVID-19 online questionnaire during the first wave of the pandemic. Depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-8) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale (GAD-7) respectively. Unpaired analyses were done to examine the effect of COVID-19 on depression and anxiety symptoms during the pandemic. Paired analysis was conducted to examine the change in depression symptoms. RESULTS: During the pandemic, we reported a prevalence of 32.8% (95% CI: 27.0, 39.1) for depression and 26.4% (95% CI: 21.0, 32.6) for anxiety symptoms. Younger people reported higher levels of depression (40.4%) and anxiety (34.5%) symptoms. Females reported higher levels of depression (36.5%) and anxiety (32.7%) symptoms. In paired analysis, the prevalence of depression symptoms during the pandemic was 34% (95% CI: 26.5, 42.4) compared to 29.9% (95% CI: 22.7, 38.1) before the pandemic. No statistically significant difference was observed, p-value = 0.440. Adjusted multivariate logistic regression models for PHQ-8 and GAD-7 during the pandemic showed that participants, who were experiencing flu-like symptoms, had higher odds of reporting depression symptoms compared to those without symptoms. Additionally, age was significantly negatively associated with anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we found that depression and anxiety symptoms were more prevalent among young people and females. However, we did not find a significant change in the prevalence of depression symptoms among those with comparable pre-pandemic data. Identifying vulnerable groups and understanding trajectories through longitudinal studies would help with planning for effective mental health interventions for the current and future pandemics.

Maternal Early-Life Risk Factors and Later Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the UAE Healthy Future Study (UAEHFS).

Limited studies have focused on maternal early-life risk factors and the later development of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). We aimed to estimate the GDM prevalence and examine the associations of maternal early-life risk factors, namely: maternal birthweight, parental smoking at birth, childhood urbanicity, ever-breastfed, parental education attainment, parental history of diabetes, childhood overall health, childhood body size, and childhood height, with later GDM. This was a retrospective cross-sectional study using the UAE Healthy Future Study (UAEHFS) baseline data (February 2016 to April 2022) on 702 ever-married women aged 18 to 67 years. We fitted a Poisson regression to estimate the risk ratio (RR) for later GDM and its 95% confidence interval (CI). The GDM prevalence was 5.1%. In the fully adjusted model, females with low birthweight were four times more likely (RR 4.04, 95% CI 1.36-12.0) and females with a parental history of diabetes were nearly three times more likely (RR 2.86, 95% CI 1.10-7.43) to report later GDM. In conclusion, maternal birthweight and parental history of diabetes were significantly associated with later GDM. Close glucose monitoring during pregnancy among females with either a low birth weight and/or parental history of diabetes might help to prevent GDM among this high-risk group.