ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to various social distancing practices such as mandatory working from home, which aim to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The purpose of this study was to compare the mental health impacts between men and women being forced to work from home following a COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: This study analyzed data collected from two rounds of surveys conducted in four cities in China: Beijing, Chengdu, Changsha, and Wuhan. A total of 940 individual responses were analyzed in this study. Multiple linear regression and ordinal logistic models were used to analyze the relationship between being forced to work from home, demographic variables, work-related variables, COVID-19 variables, family ties variables, and mental health variables. Results: The analysis showed that being forced to work from home was associated with worse mental health in men, but not among women. Married men reported better mental health compared with unmarried men, while the association between marital status and mental health was the opposite in women. Mental health was worse among those in higher job positions for both men and women. In addition, being forced to work from home was also associated with worse mental health among young, high-income men, and highly educated women. Conclusions: The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching and amy persist for years. Furthermore, the number of workers who choose to work from home is expected to increase. The findings of this study can inform policy-making that will improve the mental health of employees working from home, with particular attention to men forced to work from home.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This study aims to determine the effect of religious coping on geriatric anxiety in a group of older Turkish women during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Methods: Implementing a cross-sectional research design, this study was conducted on 356 women who visited the women’s health clinics, for various reasons, in a hospital in Elazig, Turkey, between January and February 2021. Data were collected using a sociodemographic form, the COVID-19 Phobia Scale, the Religious Coping Scale, and the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory. Results: The study determined that 78.4% of the women were between 60 and 70 years old, 43.0% had a basic level of literacy, 82.9% were married, 45.8% had equal income and expenditures, and 69.9% were housewives. Data showed 87.9% of the women had chronic diseases and 45.2% had difficulties accessing hospital services. The relationship between geriatric anxiety and the age and marital status of participants was significant. Women aged 71 to 81 years and single women had a higher risk of geriatric anxiety;unemployed women were found to have more geriatric anxiety. Those with geriatric anxiety perceived their health status to be moderate. The negative religious coping score was found to be statistically significantly higher in the older women who experienced geriatric anxiety. Conclusion: These results reveal the importance of supporting older women in coping with fear and geriatric anxiety. Old age often brings loneliness and loss of income for women and those forced to remain at home due to restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic period need to be considered holistically.
ABSTRACT
Background. The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with an array of social and economic events, influencing how the pandemic affected people of all genders. In particular, job losses surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among women. We analyzed how the pandemic and rising job losses affected the mental health of unmarried women with and without children in order to identify possible health disparities, potential causal factors and opportunities for interventions. Methods. Data were collected from Wave 3 (January 6-February 15, 2021) of the US Census COVID-19 Household Pulse online survey designed to measure the impact of COVID-19. Microdata files were downloaded from the Census website and included N=13,940 never-married female respondents aged 25-54 years old. Data were analyzed using χ2 tests, with z-tests for more granular between-group comparisons. Results. When asked if they had felt anxiety in the past week, 31% of respondents without children in the household and 28% of those with children reported feeling anxiety nearly every day (p< .05). Among those who did not lose work during the pandemic, 24% of those without children felt anxiety nearly every day vs. 20% of those with children (p< .05). Among those who did experience pandemic-related job loss, 33% of those with children and 42% of those without children reported daily anxiety (p< .05). Conclusion. Overall, COVID-19 job loss was associated with higher levels of anxiety for never-married adult women. Notably, respondents without children expressed significantly higher levels of anxiety than respondents with children, and this difference was even greater when comparing those who had lost jobs during the pandemic. Reasons are being further researched but may be related to mothers' greater opportunities for social and community support, particularly when encountering difficult circumstances. These results have implications for the development of mental health programs serving women experiencing environmental stressors such as job loss, especially women without children who may not have the same mental health and community support.