scholarly journals Covid-19 and Mental Health of Individuals with Different Personalities

Author(s):  
Eugenio Proto ◽  
Anwen Zhang

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 lockdown according to different personalities. We do this using the UKHLS longitudinal dataset, representative of the UK population. The UKHLS dataset allows us to assess the mental health of the same respondent during the Covid-19 period and the year before based on their personality "Big Five" traits and cognitive skills. We find that during the Covid-19 period individuals who have more Extrovert and Open personality report a higher mental health deterioration, while the ones scoring higher in Agreeableness are less affected. The effect of Openness is particularly strong: one more standard deviation predict one more symptom on the GHQ12 test for about 1 respondent over 4. In female respondents, Cognitive Skills and Openness are particularly strong predictors of deterioration. Neuroticism seems to predict more mental health deterioration, as it is normal to expect, but this effect is not significant in the main specifications of the estimated model. 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)

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (37) ◽  
pp. e2109282118
Author(s):  
Eugenio Proto ◽  
Anwen Zhang

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).


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0244419
Author(s):  
Eugenio Proto ◽  
Climent Quintana-Domeque

We use the UK Household Longitudinal Study and compare pre-COVID-19 pandemic (2017-2019) and during-COVID-19 pandemic data (April 2020) for the same group of individuals to assess and quantify changes in mental health as measured by changes in the GHQ-12 (General Health Questionnaire), among ethnic groups in the UK. We confirm the previously documented average deterioration in mental health for the whole sample of individuals interviewed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we find that the average increase in mental distress varies by ethnicity and gender. Both women –regardless of their ethnicity– and Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) men experienced a higher average increase in mental distress than White British men, so that the gender gap in mental health increases only among White British individuals. These ethnic-gender specific changes in mental health persist after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Finally, we find some evidence that, among men, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani individuals have experienced the highest average increase in mental distress with respect to White British men.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla McBride ◽  
Sarah Butter ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
Ryan McKay ◽  
...  

Objectives: This paper describes fieldwork procedures for the fifth wave of the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study, conducted during March-April 2021. The C19PRC Study was established in March 2020 to monitor the psychological and socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and other countries. Methods: The survey wave assessed: COVID-19 related experiences; the occurrence of common mental health disorders; psychological factors; and social and political attitudes – to facilitate statistical analyses to determine how these constructs on influenced the public’s response to the pandemic. Adults who participated in any previous survey wave (N=4949) were re-contacted and invited to participate. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure that the longitudinal panel was nationally representative in terms of gender, age, and household income, amongst other factors. Results: Overall, 2520 adults participated in this wave. A total of 2377 adults who participated in the previous survey wave (i.e., Wave 4 of the C19PRC Study, conducted November-December 2020) were successfully recontacted and provided full interviews at Wave 5 (61.5% retention rate). Attrition between these two waves was predicted by factors such as younger age, lower household income, having children living in the household, and current or past experiences of treatment for mental health difficulties. Of the adults recruited into the C19PRC study at baseline, 57.4% (N=1162) participated in the fifth wave. The raking procedure successfully re-balanced the longitudinal panel to within 1.5% of population estimates for selected socio-demographic characteristics. Conclusion: This paper outlines the growing strength of the publicly available C19PRC Study data to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research aimed at addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Climent Quintana-Domeque ◽  
Eugenio Proto

We use longitudinal data from a representative sample of the UK and compare self-reported mental health, as measured by the GHQ-12 score, at three timepoints (2017-2019, April 2020 and March 2021), for the whole sample and by sex and ethnicity. Out of the 14,382 individuals interviewed in 2017-2019 and April 2020, 10,445 were interviewed again in March 2021. The mean GHQ-12 in April 2020 is 12.37 [95% CI: 12.22, 12.52] and in March 2021 is 12.36 [95% CI: 12.21, 12.51], above that in 2017-2019, 11.13 [95% CI: 10.99, 11.26]. We do not find evidence that the level of mental health goes back to pre-pandemic levels. In terms of inequalities, while the gender gap (mean difference between women and men) in mental health deterioration among White British is closing, there is no clear evidence that the ethnic gap (mean difference between ethnic minorities and White British) among men is changing.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hazell ◽  
Emma Thornton ◽  
Hassan Haghparast-Bidgoli ◽  
Praveetha Patalay

There are socio-economic inequalities in the experience of mental ill-health. However, less is known about the extent of inequalities by different indicators of socio-economic position (SEP). This is relevant for insights into the mechanisms by which these inequalities arise. For young people's mental health there is an additional layer of complexity provided by the widespread use of proxy reporters. Using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N=10,969), we investigated the extent to which five objective SEP indicators (parent education, household income, household wealth, parent occupational status, and relative neighbourhood deprivation) predict adolescent internalising mental health and how this varies as a function of reporter. Both parent report and adolescent self-report were considered. Regression models demonstrated that whilst all five SEP indicators were associated with parent-reported adolescent mental health (regression coefficients for the most disadvantaged groups and adolescent mental health: parent education β=0.53 [0.44;0.62], household income β=0.56 [0.50;0.62], household wealth β=0.18 [0.10;0.27], parent occupational status β=0.40 [0.35;0.46], and relative neighbourhood deprivation β=0.41 [0.33;0.49]), only income (β=0.11 [0.04;0.17]), wealth (β=0.12 [0.02;0.21]), and occupational status (β=0.08 [0.03;0.13]) were associated with self-reported mental health. The magnitude of these effects was greater for parent-reported than self-reported adolescent internalising symptoms: SEP indicators jointly predicted 5.2% of the variance in parent-reported compared to 1.4% of the variance in self-reported internalising mental health. Income predicted the most variance in both parent (4.2% variance) and self-reported internalising symptoms (0.5% variance). Interestingly, the gradient of parent-reported adolescent mental health across SEP indicators mirrors that of parent's own mental health (for example, income predicted 7.3% variance). Our findings highlight that the relevance of different SEP indicators to adolescent internalising mental health differs between parent and adolescent reports. Therefore, it is important to consider the various perspectives of mental health inequalities gained from different types of reporters.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 284-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekka Weidmann ◽  
Thomas Ledermann ◽  
Alexander Grob

Abstract. Personality has been found to play an important role in predicting satisfaction in couples. This review presents dyadic research on the association between Big Five traits and both life and relationship satisfaction in couples focusing on self-reported personality, partner-perceived personality (how the partner rates one’s own personality), and personality similarity. Furthermore, special attention is given to possible gender effects. The findings indicate the importance of self-reported as well as partner-perceived reported personality for the satisfaction of both partners. Specifically, the majority of studies found intrapersonal and interpersonal effects for neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness on life or relationship satisfaction. For the partner-perceived personality, intrapersonal and interpersonal effects were present for all Big Five traits. Partners’ similarity in personality traits seems not to be related with their satisfaction when controlling for partners’ personality.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document