Perceived discrimination based on the symptoms of covid-19, mental health, and emotional responses-the international online COVISTRESS survey.

BACKGROUND: Despite the potential detrimental consequences for individuals' health and discrimination from covid-19 symptoms, the outcomes have received little attention. This study examines the relationships between having personally experienced discrimination based on the symptoms of covid-19 (during the first wave of the pandemic), mental health, and emotional responses (anger and sadness). It was predicted that covid-19 discrimination would be positively related to poor mental health and that this relationship would be mediated by the emotions of anger and sadness. METHODS: The study was conducted using an online questionnaire from January to June 2020 (the Covistress network; including 44 countries). Participants were extracted from the COVISTRESS database (Ntotal = 280) with about a half declaring having been discriminated due to covid-19 symptoms (N = 135). Discriminated participants were compared to non-discriminated participants using ANOVA. A mediation analysis was conducted to examine the indirect effect of emotional responses and the relationships between perceived discrimination and self-reported mental health. RESULTS: The results indicated that individuals who experienced discrimination based on the symptoms of covid-19 had poorer mental health and experienced more anger and sadness. The relationship between covid-19 personal discrimination and mental health disappeared when the emotions of anger and sadness were statistically controlled for. The indirect effects for both anger and sadness were statistically significant. DISCUSSION: This study suggests that the covid-19 pandemic may have generated discriminatory behaviors toward those suspected of having symptoms and that this is related to poorer mental health via anger and sadness.

The Evolution of Effort-Reward Imbalance in Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic in France-An Observational Study in More than 8000 Workers.

(1) Background: The effects of lockdown repetition on work-related stress, expressed through Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI), during the COVID-19 pandemic are poorly documented. We investigated the effect of repetitive lockdowns on the ERI in French workers, its difference across occupations, and the change in its influencing factors across time. (2) Methods: Participants were included in a prospective cross-sectional observational study from 30 March 2020 to 28 May 2021. The primary outcome was the ERI score (visual analog scale). The ERI score of the population was examined via Generalized Estimating Equations. For each period, the factors influencing ERI were studied by multivariate linear regression. (3) Results: In 8121 participants, the ERI score decreased in the first 2 lockdowns (53.2 ± 0.3, p < 0.001; 50.5 ± 0.7, p < 0.001) and after lockdown 2 (54.8 ± 0.8, p = 0.004) compared with the pre-pandemic period (59 ± 0.4). ERI was higher in medical than in paramedical professionals in the pre-pandemic and the first 2 lockdowns. Higher workloads were associated with better ERI scores. (4) Conclusions: In a large French sample, Effort-Reward Imbalance worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic until the end of the 2nd lockdown. Paramedical professionals experienced a higher burden of stress compared with medical professionals.

Multiscaled causality of infections on viral testing volumes: The case of COVID-19 in Tunisia.

OBJECTIVES: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is one of the most detrimental pandemics that affected the humanity throughout the ages. The irregular historical progression of the virus over the first year of the pandemic was accompanied with far-reaching health and social damages. To prepare logistically against this worsening disaster, many public authorities around the world had set up screening and forecasting studies. This article aims to analyse the time-frequency co-evolution of the number of confirmed cases (NCC) in Tunisia and the related number of performed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests over the COVID-19 first year. Accurately predicting such a relationship allows Tunisian authorities to set up an effective health prevention plan. STUDY DESIGN: In order to keep pace with the speed of evolution of the virus, we used uninterrupted daily time series from the Tunisian Ministry of Public Health (TMPH) recorded over the COVID-19 first year. The objective is to: (1) analyse the time-frequency progress of the NCC in relationship with the number of PCR tests, (2) identify a multi-scale two-factor stochastic model in order to develop a robust bivariate forecasting technique. METHODS: We assume a bivariate stochastic process which is projected onto a set of wavelet sub-spaces to investigate the scale-by-scale co-evolvement the NCC/PCR over the COVID-19 first year. A wavelet-based multiresolutional causality test is then performed. RESULTS: The main results recommend the rejection of the null hypothesis of no instantaneous causality in both directions, while the statistics of the Granger test suggest failing to reject the null hypothesis of non-causality. However, by proceeding scale-by-scale, the Granger causality is proven significant in both directions over varying frequency bands. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to include the NCC and PCR variables in any time series model intended to predict one of these variables. Such a bivariate and multi-scale model is supposed to better predict the needs of the public health sector in screening tests. On this basis, testing campaigns with multiple periodicities can be planned by the Tunisian authorities.