impact of COVID-19 lockdown announcements on mental health: quasi-natural experiment in Lombardy, Italy.
Background Evidence showed that mental health problems have risen markedly during COVID-19. It is unclear if part of the mental sufferings relates to the climate of uncertainty and confusion originated from rough communication by health officials and politicians. Here, we test the impact of unantici...
| Publicado en: | European Journal of Public Health Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 488 - 494 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Jun2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=157279787&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 157279787 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 11011262 BHW jtl: European Journal of Public Health issn: 11011262 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2022 vid: 32 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 157279787 157279787 157279787 10.1093/eurpub/ckac035 157279787 ppf: 488 ppct: 6 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: impact of COVID-19 lockdown announcements on mental health: quasi-natural experiment in Lombardy, Italy. aug: au: Wang, Yuxi Lugo, Alessandra Amerio, Andrea d'Oro, Luca Cavalieri Iacoviello, Licia Odone, Anna Zucchi, Alberto Gallus, Silvano Stuckler, David Investigators, the Lost in Lombardia Project affil: Department of Social and Political Science, Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy, Bocconi University , Milan, Italy sug: subj: COVID-19 Pandemic Psychosocial Factors Stay-at-Home Orders Mental Health Human Quasi-Experimental Studies Public Policy Surveys Middle Age Aged Aged, 80 and Over Regression Sociodemographic Factors Confidence Intervals Descriptive Statistics Italy Middle Aged: 45-64 years Aged: 65+ years Aged, 80 & over ab: Background Evidence showed that mental health problems have risen markedly during COVID-19. It is unclear if part of the mental sufferings relates to the climate of uncertainty and confusion originated from rough communication by health officials and politicians. Here, we test the impact of unanticipated policy announcements of lockdown policies on mental health of the older population. Methods We used a representative telephone-based survey of 4400 people aged 65 years or older in Italy's Lombardy region to compare information on self-reported symptoms of anxiety, depression and poor-quality sleep of subjects interviewed on the days of the policy announcement with that of subjects interviewed on other days. We used regression models adjusting for potential socio-demographic confounders as well study design with inverse probability weighting. Results On days when policymakers announced to extend the lockdown, mental health deteriorated on average by 5.5 percentage points [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1–9.8] for self-reported anxiety symptoms and 5.1 percentage points (95% CI: 2.7–7.4) for self-reported depressive symptoms. The effect of the announcement to shorten the lockdown is more moderate but statistically significant. These associations were short term in duration; after just 1 day, self-reported mental health and sleep quality return to levels better than pre-announcement until a new policy change. Conclusions Our research shows that lockdown policy announcements are associated with short-term worsening in mental distress, highlighting the importance of appropriate communication strategies and political determinations in crisis times. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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