A COVID-19 descriptive study of life after lockdown in Wuhan, China

Abstract

On 8 April 2020, the Chinese government lifted the lockdown and opened up public transportation in Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. After 76 days in lockdown, Wuhan residents were allowed to travel outside of the city and go back to work. Yet, given that there is still no vaccine for the virus, this leaves many doubting whether life will indeed go back to normal. The aim of this research was to track longitudinal changes in motivation for self-isolating, life-structured, indicators of well-being and mental health after lockdown was lifted. We have recruited 462 participants in Wuhan, China, prior to lockdown lift between 3 and 7 April 2020 (Time 1), and have followed up with 292 returning participants between 18 and 22 April 2020 (Time 2), 284 between 6 and 10 May 2020 (Time 3), and 279 between 25 and 29 May 2020 (Time 4). This four-wave study used latent growth models to examine how Wuhan residents' psychological experiences change (if at all) within the first two months after lockdown was lifted. The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 2 June 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the OSF at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis. Generally, our study found that: (i) a majority of people still continue to value self-isolation after lockdown was lifted; (ii) by the end of lockdown, people perceived gradual return to normality and restored structure of everyday life; (iii) the psychological well-being slightly improved after lockdown was lifted; (iv) people who used problem solving and help-seeking as coping strategies during lockdown had better well-being and mental health by the end of the lockdown; (v) those who experienced more disruptions in daily life during lockdown would display more indicators of psychological ill-being by the end of the lockdown.

Keywords: COVID-19; depression; loneliness; well-being.

Figure 1.

Time frame of the assessment in the current study.

Figure 2.

Graph illustrating the rate of life returning to normality within the first two months after lockdown.

Figure 3.

Change in distribution of the sample that self-isolate during lockdown and after lockdown.

Figure 4.

Graph illustrating the rates of identified and external motivations decreasing within the first two months after lockdown.

Figure 5.

Graph illustrating the rates of depressive symptoms and life structure changing within the first two months after lockdown.

Figure 6.

Graph illustrating the rates of depletion, isolation and need satisfaction changing within the first two months after lockdown.

Figure 7.

Prevalence rate of coping strategies endorsed during lockdown.

Figure 8.

Severity levels (1–7) of different stressors experienced during lockdown.

Figure 9.

Graph illustrating different trajectories of change in depletion within the first two months after lockdown by different levels of daily disruptions reported during lockdown.

Figure 10.

Graph illustrating different trajectories of change in depressive symptoms within the first two months after lockdown by different levels of daily disruptions reported during lockdown.