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Observational Study
. 2022 Oct;52(13):2549-2558.
doi: 10.1017/S0033291720004432. Epub 2020 Nov 13.

Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Michael Daly  1 , Angelina R Sutin  2 , Eric Robinson  3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Michael Daly et al. Psychol Med. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a range of negative social and economic effects that may contribute to a rise in mental health problems. In this observational population-based study, we examined longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems from before to during the COVID-19 crisis and identified subgroups that are psychologically vulnerable during the pandemic.

Methods: Participants (N = 14 393; observations = 48 486) were adults drawn from wave 9 (2017-2019) of the nationally representative United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) and followed-up across three waves of assessment in April, May, and June 2020. Mental health problems were assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12).

Results: The population prevalence of mental health problems (GHQ-12 score ⩾3) increased by 13.5 percentage points from 24.3% in 2017-2019 to 37.8% in April 2020 and remained elevated in May (34.7%) and June (31.9%) 2020. All sociodemographic groups examined showed statistically significant increases in mental health problems in April 2020. The increase was largest among those aged 18-34 years (18.6 percentage points, 95% CI 14.3-22.9%), followed by females and high-income and education groups. Levels of mental health problems subsequently declined between April and June 2020 but remained significantly above pre-COVID-19 levels. Additional analyses showed that the rise in mental health problems observed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to be due to seasonality or year-to-year variation.

Conclusions: This study suggests that a pronounced and prolonged deterioration in mental health occurred as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the UK between April and June 2020.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus infection; longitudinal research; mental health; nationally representative study; psychological distress.

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Conflict of interest statement

ER has previously received research funding from Unilever and the American Beverage Association for unrelated research.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Predicted probability of mental health problems in each year of the UKHLS across nine waves of data collection from 2009 to 2019 and three waves collected in April (4/2020), May (5/2020), and June (6/2020) of 2020. Trends shown are derived from a logistic regression model with clustered standard errors (N = 65 821; observations = 325 684). 95% confidence intervals presented in grey. Note: 2019 estimate includes a reduced number of assessments (N = 1454).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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