Trends in psychological distress in Great Britain, 1991-2019: evidence from three representative surveys.

BACKGROUND: Previously improving UK mortality trends stalled around 2012, with evidence implicating economic policy as the cause. This paper examines whether trends in psychological distress across three population surveys show similar trends. METHODS: We report the percentages reporting psychological distress (4+ in the 12-item General Health Questionnaire) from Understanding Society (Great Britain, 1991-2019), Scottish Health Survey (SHeS, 1995-2019) and Health Survey for England (HSE, 2003-2018) for the population overall, and stratified by sex, age and area deprivation. Summary inequality indices were calculated and segmented regressions fitted to identify breakpoints after 2010. RESULTS: Psychological distress was higher in Understanding Society than in SHeS or HSE. There was slight improvement between 1992 and 2015 in Understanding Society (with prevalence declining from 20.6% to 18.6%) with some fluctuations. After 2015 there is some evidence of a worsening in psychological distress across surveys. Prevalence worsened notably among those aged 16-34 years after 2010 (all three surveys), and aged 35-64 years in Understanding Society and SHeS after 2015. In contrast, the prevalence declined in those aged 65+ years in Understanding Society after around 2008, with less clear trends in the other surveys. The prevalence was around twice as high in the most deprived compared with the least deprived areas, and higher in women, with trends by deprivation and sex similar to the populations overall. CONCLUSION: Psychological distress worsened among working-age adults after around 2015 across British population surveys, mirroring the mortality trends. This indicates a widespread mental health crisis that predates the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anxiety and depression among medical doctors in Catalonia, Italy, and the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healthcare workers have had the longest and most direct exposure to COVID-19 and consequently may suffer from poor mental health. We conducted one of the first repeated multi-country analysis of the mental wellbeing of medical doctors (n = 5,275) at two timepoints during the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020 and November/December 2020) to understand the prevalence of anxiety and depression, as well as associated risk factors. Rates of anxiety and depression were highest in Italy (24.6% and 20.1%, June 2020), second highest in Catalonia (15.9% and 17.4%, June 2020), and lowest in the UK (11.7% and 13.7%, June 2020). Across all countries, higher risk of anxiety and depression symptoms were found among women, individuals below 60 years old, those feeling vulnerable/exposed at work, and those reporting normal/below-normal health. We did not find systematic differences in mental health measures between the two rounds of data collection, hence we cannot discard that the mental health repercussions of the pandemic are persistent.

COVID-19 and mental health of individuals with different personalities.

Several studies have been devoted to establishing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health across gender, age, and ethnicity. However, much less attention has been paid to the differential effect of COVID-19 according to different personalities. We do this using the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), a large-scale panel survey representative of the UK population. The UKHLS allows us to assess the mental health of the same respondent before and during the COVID-19 period based on their "Big Five" personality traits and cognitive skills. We find that during the COVID-19 period, individuals who have more extravert and open personality traits report a higher mental health deterioration, while those scoring higher in agreeableness are less affected. The effect of openness is particularly strong: One more SD predicts up to 0.23 more symptoms of mental health deterioration in the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) test during the COVID-19 period. In particular, for females, cognitive skills and openness are strong predictors of mental health deterioration, while for non-British White respondents, these predictors are extraversion and openness. Neuroticism strongly predicts worse mental health cross-sectionally, but it does not lead to significantly stronger deterioration during the pandemic. The study's results are robust to the inclusion of potential confounding variables such as changes in physical health, household income, and job status (like unemployed or furloughed).