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. 2020 Sep:136:110186.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110186. Epub 2020 Jul 3.

The effect of age, gender, income, work, and physical activity on mental health during coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown in Austria

Christoph Pieh  1 , Sanja Budimir  2 , Thomas Probst  3
Affiliations

The effect of age, gender, income, work, and physical activity on mental health during coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown in Austria

Christoph Pieh et al. J Psychosom Res. 2020 Sep.

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: The impact of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the governmental restrictions on mental health have been reported for different countries. This study evaluated mental health during COVID-19 lockdown in Austria and the effect of age, gender, income, work, and physical activity.

Methods: An online survey was performed through Qualtrics® after four weeks of lockdown in Austria to recruit a representative sample regarding gender, age, education, and region. Indicators of mental health were quality of life (WHO-QOL BREF), well-being (WHO-5), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), stress (PSS-10), and sleep quality (ISI).

Results: In total, N = 1005 individuals were included (53% women). 21% scored above the cut off ≥10 points (PHQ-9) for moderate depressive symptoms, 119% scored above the cut-off ≥10 points (GAD-7) for moderate anxiety symptoms, and 16% above the cut-off ≥15 points (ISI) for clinical insomnia. ANOVAs, Bonferroni-corrected post-hoc tests, and t-tests showed highest mental health problems in adults under 35 years, women, people with no work, and low income (all p-values <.05). Comparisons with a large Austrian sample recruited within the ATHIS 2014 study showed increases of depression and decreases of quality of life in times of COVID-19 as compared to before COVID-19.

Conclusions: Depressive symptoms (21%) and anxiety symptoms (19%) are higher during COVID-19 compared to previous epidemiological data. 16% rated over the cut-off for moderate or severe clinical insomnia. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown seems particularly stressful for younger adults (<35 years), women, people without work, and low income.

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