Increased Risk Perception, Distress Intolerance and Health Anxiety in Stricter Lockdowns: Self-Control as a Key Protective Factor in Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Studies provide evidence that distress, (health) anxiety, and depressive symptoms were high during the first weeks of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, decreasing over time (possibly due to individuals' protective psychological factors). Relations between different lockdown restrictions, mental health issues, and protective factors need to be explored, since even small lockdown effects might increase the risk of future mental health issues. We merged objective lockdown stringency data with individual data (N = 1001) to examine differences in lockdown effects in strict lockdown (Romania) and mild lockdown (Hungary) conditions between March and May 2020 on stressors and mental health symptoms, taking protective factors into account. The stricter lockdown in Romania revealed higher levels of perceived risk of infection, distress intolerance, and COVID-19 health anxiety. Protective psychological factors were not affected by the lockdown measures. Surpassing psychological flexibility and resilient coping, self-control proved to be the most promising protective factor. It is recommended that future research merge objective data with study data to investigate the effects of different COVID-19 lockdown measures on mental health and protective factors. Policy decisions should consider lockdown-dependent consequences of mental health issues. Intervention programs are suggested to mitigate mental health issues and to strengthen peoples' protective psychological factors.

Keywords: COVID-19; Hungary; Romania; lockdown stringency; mental health; self-control.

Figure 1

Description of the governmental stringency of lockdown conditions during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary and Romania. The dots and triangles represent the distribution of each individual’s SI score (not the P_SIW), referring to the day of participation in the present study, and show that all participants had experienced more or less country-specific governmental restrictions for at least one month before participation.

Figure 2

Results of the path model investigating effects of personalized stringency conditions (P_SIW) and protective psychological factors on COVID-19 related outcome variables: direct effects. Correlations between variables at the same levels (predictors, mediators, outcomes) were allowed, but are omitted in favor of clarity.