An overview of the context, design and conduct of the first two waves of the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study

Author(s):  
Orla McBride ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Mark Shevlin ◽  
Jilly Gibson Miller ◽  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
...  

The C19PRC Study aims to assess the psychological, social, and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, Republic of Ireland, and Spain. This paper describes the the first two waves of the UK survey (the ‘parent’ strand of the Consortium) during March-April 2020. A longitudinal, internet panel survey assessed: (1) COVID-19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours; (2) the occurrence of common mental health disorders (e.g. anxiety, depression); as well as the role of (3) psychological factors (e.g. personality, locus of control, resilience) and (4) social and political attitudes (e.g. authoritarianism, social dominance), in influencing the public’s response to the pandemic. Quota sampling was used to recruit a nationally representative (in terms of age, sex, and household income) sample of adults (N=2025), 1406 of whom were followed-up one month later (69.4% retention rate). The baseline sample was representative of the UK population in terms of economic activity, ethnicity, and household composition. Attrition was predicted by key socio-demographic characteristics, and an inverse probability weighting procedure was employed to ensure the follow-up sample was representative of the baseline sample. C19PRC Study data has strong generalisability to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research on important public health questions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla McBride ◽  
Sarah Butter ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Mark Shevlin ◽  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
...  

Objectives: The COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the adult population in multiple countries. This paper describes the execution of the third wave of the UK survey (the ‘parent’ strand of the Consortium) during July-August 2020. Methods: Adults (N=2025) who previously participated in the baseline and/or the first follow-up surveys were reinvited to participate in this survey, which assessed: (1) COVID-19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours; (2) the occurrence of common mental health disorders; as well as the role of (3) psychological factors and (4) social and political attitudes, in influencing the public’s response to the pandemic. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure that the cross-sectional sample is nationally representative in terms of gender, age, household income, household composition, and urbanicity. Results: 1166 adults (57.6% of baseline participants) were successfully recontacted and provided full interviews at Wave 3. As expected, the raking procedure successfully re-balanced the cross-sectional sample to within 1% of population estimates across the selected socio-demographic characteristics. Conclusion: This paper outlines the growing strength of the C19PRC Study data to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.


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):  
Mark Shevlin ◽  
Sarah Butter ◽  
Orla McBride ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Jilly Gibson Miller ◽  
...  

Shevlin et al. (2021) recently demonstrated heterogeneity in mental health and psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic over time from a nationally representative sample of UK adults (March–July 2020). Five subpopulations representing either stability, deterioration or improvement in both anxiety-depression and COVID-19 PTSD were identified. The majority of the sample were characterised by low levels of anxiety-depression (56.6%) and COVID-19 traumatic stress (68.3%) during this early phase of the pandemic but some showed deterioration and some showed mental health benefits. Here we extend these findings using two additional survey waves from the C19PRC Study, thereby modelling mental health trajectories for the UK population within the entire first year of the pandemic.


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

Objectives: The COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adult population in multiple countries. This paper describes the design and execution of the fourth wave of the UK survey (the ‘parent’ strand of the Consortium) during November-December 2020. Methods: This survey prioritised the collection of data pertaining to respondents’ socio-political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours, as well as core mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress). In Phase 1, adults (n=2878) were reinvited to participate in this wave. A new recruitment strand (Phase 2) oversampled respondents from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to facilitate robust between-country analyses for core study outcomes. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure that the cross-sectional sample is representative of the baseline sample characteristics (gender, age, household income, household composition, ethnicity, urbanicity, and born/raised in UK). Results: In Phase 1, 1796 adults were successfully recontacted and provided full interviews at Wave 4 (62.4% retention rate). Phase 2 recruitment achieved a robust sample of 1779 respondents from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, who were largely representative of the socio-demographic and political characteristics of the adult populations in these nations. The raking procedure successfully re-balanced the cross-sectional sample to within 1% of population estimates across selected socio-demographic characteristics. Conclusion: This paper outlines the growing strength of the C19PRC Study data to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Shevlin ◽  
Sarah Butter ◽  
Orla McBride ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Jilly Gibson Miller ◽  
...  

Background: The current study argues that population prevalence estimates for mental health disorders, or changes in mean scores over time, may not adequately reflect the heterogeneity in mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic within the population.Methods: The COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study is a longitudinal, nationally representative, online survey of UK adults. The current study analysed data from its first three waves of data collection: Wave 1 (March 2020, N=2025), Wave 2 (April 2020, N=1406) and Wave 3 (July 2020, N=1166). Anxiety-depression was measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire Anxiety and Depression Scale (a composite measure of the PHQ-9 and GAD-7) and COVID-19 related PTSD with the International Trauma Questionnaire. Changes in mental health outcomes were modelled across the three waves. Latent class growth analysis was used to identify subgroups of individuals with different trajectories of change in anxiety-depression and COVID-19 PTSD. Latent class membership was regressed on baseline characteristics.Results: Overall prevalence of anxiety-depression remained stable, while COVID-19 PTSD reduced between Waves 2 and 3. Heterogeneity in mental health response was found, and hypothesised classes reflecting (i) stability, (ii) improvement, and (iii) deterioration in mental health were identified. Psychological factors were most likely to differentiate the improving, deteriorating and high-stable classes from the low-stable mental health trajectories. Conclusions: A low-stable profile characterised by little-to-no psychological distress (‘resilient’ class) was the most common trajectory for both anxiety-depression and COVID-19 PTSD. Monitoring these trajectories is necessary moving forward, in particular for the ~30% of individuals with increasing anxiety-depression levels.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Bruno ◽  
Anna Panzeri ◽  
Umberto Granziol ◽  
Fabio Alivernini ◽  
Andrea Chirico ◽  
...  

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic represents a major stressor for the psychological health of people worldwide. In the UK, the Covid19-Psychological Research Consortium Study (C19PRC) launched to evaluate the psychological impact of Covid-19 in the general population and its implications. The project was then extended to Italy and several other countries.Purpose: this article provides an overview of the Italian C19PRC study and its replication of two specific findings from the UK C19PRC. In the first part, the relationship between anxiety and somatic symptomatology is examined. In the second part, we analyse the association between several factors and psychological health outcomes: depression/anxiety, traumatic stress, Covid-19 anxiety. Methods: in line with the study conducted in the UK, an online survey was administered to the adult Italian general population. The sample included 1038 respondents (age, mean = 49.94, SD = 16.14; 51.15% females) taken from four regions: Lombardia, Veneto, Lazio e Campania. The relationship between predictors and outcomes was evaluated by means of logistic regression models.Results: somatic indices showed a positive association with anxiety, worse somatic symptoms were associated with having had losses due to Covid-19 and with precarious health conditions. Females showed a higher incidence of psychological issues. No differences in anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress were found across regions but the Campania region showed the most severe somatic symptomatology. In the second analysis, the factors associated with more severe psychological outcomes (i.e., anxiety and/or depression, traumatic stress, and Covid-19 Related Anxiety) were younger age, the presence of minors in the household, traumatic stressors, and precarious health conditions. No differences across regions emerged.Discussions and conclusions: The Italian results correspond to the UK findings for anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress 1. Both in the UK and Italy, the factors associated with worse psychological health were gender (female), younger age, having children, pre-existing health issues (both for oneself or someone close), and the moderate/high perceived risk of contracting Covid-19 within one month. In Italy, unlike the UK, lower household income and having (had) Covid-19 were not associated with poorer mental health. The psychological impact of Covid-19 can last for months; future research should explore all aspects of the psychological burden of Covid-19 in order to implement psychological interventions and promote psychological health.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Giovanni Bruno ◽  
Anna Panzeri ◽  
Umberto Granziol ◽  
Fabio Alivernini ◽  
Andrea Chirico ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a major stressor for the psychological health of people worldwide. In the UK, the COVID19-Psychological Research Consortium Study (C19PRC) launched to evaluate the psychological impact of COVID-19 in the general population and its implications. The project was then extended to Italy and several other countries. This article provides an overview of the Italian C19PRC study and its replication of two specific findings from the UK C19PRC. In the first part, the relationship between anxiety and somatic symptomatology is examined. In the second part, we analyze the association between several factors and psychological health outcomes: depression/anxiety, traumatic stress, COVID-19 anxiety. In line with the study conducted in the UK, an online survey was administered to the adult Italian general population. The sample included 1038 respondents (age, mean = 49.94, SD = 16.14, 51.15% females) taken from four regions: Lombardia, Veneto, Lazio, and Campania. The relationship between predictors and outcomes was evaluated by means of logistic regression models. Somatic indices showed a positive association with anxiety, worse somatic symptoms were associated with mourning a loss of a beloved one due to COVID-19 and with precarious health conditions. Females showed a higher incidence of psychological issues. No differences in anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress were found across regions but the Campania region showed the most severe somatic symptomatology. In the second analysis, the factors associated with more severe psychological outcomes (i.e., anxiety and/or depression, traumatic stress, and COVID-19 related anxiety) were younger age, the presence of minors in the household, traumatic stressors, and precarious health conditions. No differences across regions emerged. The Italian results correspond to the UK findings for anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress. Both in the UK and Italy, the factors associated with worse psychological health were gender (female), younger age, having children, pre-existing health issues (both for oneself or someone close), and the moderate/high perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 within one month. In Italy, unlike the UK, lower household income and having (had) COVID-19 were not associated with poorer mental health. The psychological impact of COVID-19 can last for months; future research should explore all aspects of the psychological burden of COVID-19 in order to implement psychological interventions and promote psychological health.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Furnham ◽  
Helen Cheng

Abstract. This study used a longitudinal data set of 5,672 adults followed for 50 years to determine the factors that influence adult trait Openness-to-Experience. In a large, nationally representative sample in the UK (the National Child Development Study), data were collected at birth, in childhood (age 11), adolescence (age 16), and adulthood (ages 33, 42, and 50) to examine the effects of family social background, childhood intelligence, school motivation during adolescence, education, and occupation on the personality trait Openness assessed at age 50 years. Structural equation modeling showed that parental social status, childhood intelligence, school motivation, education, and occupation all had modest, but direct, effects on trait Openness, among which childhood intelligence was the strongest predictor. Gender was not significantly associated with trait Openness. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 016502542096573
Author(s):  
Keming Yang ◽  
Kimberly J. Petersen ◽  
Pamela Qualter

In the current study, data collected from Wave 6 of the Millennium Cohort Study ( n = 11,872), a nationally representative sample survey of youth aged 14 years in the UK, are used to examine the prevalence of loneliness among this age-group, investigate the feelings associated with the experience of loneliness among youth, explore the risk factors for loneliness among young people, and learn how they coped with loneliness. Given recent findings that youth are vulnerable to loneliness, the study assesses the prevalence of loneliness among adolescents across some important sociodemographic characteristics, such as nation of residence, gender, and ethnicity. We also identify the kinds of social experiences that accompany loneliness during adolescence, exploring friendship, relations with parents, social support, and bullying. Our key finding is that, in addition to the absence of desired social relationships, which has been typically identified as the ultimate source of loneliness, the presence of undesirable and even harmful social relationships is a major source of loneliness. This study uniquely brings together psychological and sociological perspectives to understand the experience of youth loneliness.


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

This paper serves to alert IJPDS readers to the availability of a major new longitudinal survey data resource, the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study, which is being released for secondary use via the Open Science Framework. The C19PRC Study is a rich and detailed dataset that provides a convenient and valuable foundation from which to study the social, political, and health status of European adults during an unprecedent time of change as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit. Here, we provide an overview of the C19PRC Study design, with the purpose of stimulating interest about the study among social scientists and maximising use of this resource.


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