Self-perceived loneliness and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic: a two-wave replication study

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Abstract

The global Covid-19 pandemic has forced countries to impose strict lockdown restrictions and mandatory stay-at-home orders with varying impacts on individual’s health. Combining a data-driven machine learning paradigm and a statistical approach, our previous paper documented a U-shaped pattern in levels of self-perceived loneliness in both the UK and Greek populations during the first lockdown (17 April to 17 July 2020). The current paper aimed to test the robustness of these results by focusing on data from the first and second lockdown waves in the UK. We tested a) the impact of the chosen model on the identification of the most time-sensitive variable in the period spent in lockdown. Two new machine learning models – namely, support vector regressor (SVR) and multiple linear regressor (MLR) were adopted to identify the most time-sensitive variable in the UK dataset from Wave 1 (n = 435). In the second part of the study, we tested b) whether the pattern of self-perceived loneliness found in the first UK national lockdown was generalisable to the second wave of the UK lockdown (17 October 2020 to 31 January 2021). To do so, data from Wave 2 of the UK lockdown (n = 263) was used to conduct a graphical inspection of the week-by-week distribution of self-perceived loneliness scores. In both SVR and MLR models, depressive symptoms resulted to be the most time-sensitive variable during the lockdown period. Statistical analysis of depressive symptoms by week of lockdown resulted in a U-shaped pattern between weeks 3 and 7 of Wave 1 of the UK national lockdown. Furthermore, although the sample size by week in Wave 2 was too small to have a meaningful statistical insight, a graphical U-shaped distribution between weeks 3 and 9 of lockdown was observed. Consistent with past studies, these preliminary results suggest that self-perceived loneliness and depressive symptoms may be two of the most relevant symptoms to address when imposing lockdown restrictions.

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A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin

Peng Zhou, Xing-Lou Yang, Xian-Guang Wang … (2020)

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) 18 years ago, a large number of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) have been discovered in their natural reservoir host, bats 1–4 . Previous studies have shown that some bat SARSr-CoVs have the potential to infect humans 5–7 . Here we report the identification and characterization of a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans in Wuhan, China. The epidemic, which started on 12 December 2019, had caused 2,794 laboratory-confirmed infections including 80 deaths by 26 January 2020. Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at an early stage of the outbreak. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus. Pairwise protein sequence analysis of seven conserved non-structural proteins domains show that this virus belongs to the species of SARSr-CoV. In addition, 2019-nCoV virus isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of a critically ill patient could be neutralized by sera from several patients. Notably, we confirmed that 2019-nCoV uses the same cell entry receptor—angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2)—as SARS-CoV.

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Robert L Spitzer, Kurt Kroenke, Janet B W Williams … (2006)

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is one of the most common mental disorders; however, there is no brief clinical measure for assessing GAD. The objective of this study was to develop a brief self-report scale to identify probable cases of GAD and evaluate its reliability and validity. A criterion-standard study was performed in 15 primary care clinics in the United States from November 2004 through June 2005. Of a total of 2740 adult patients completing a study questionnaire, 965 patients had a telephone interview with a mental health professional within 1 week. For criterion and construct validity, GAD self-report scale diagnoses were compared with independent diagnoses made by mental health professionals; functional status measures; disability days; and health care use. A 7-item anxiety scale (GAD-7) had good reliability, as well as criterion, construct, factorial, and procedural validity. A cut point was identified that optimized sensitivity (89%) and specificity (82%). Increasing scores on the scale were strongly associated with multiple domains of functional impairment (all 6 Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form General Health Survey scales and disability days). Although GAD and depression symptoms frequently co-occurred, factor analysis confirmed them as distinct dimensions. Moreover, GAD and depression symptoms had differing but independent effects on functional impairment and disability. There was good agreement between self-report and interviewer-administered versions of the scale. The GAD-7 is a valid and efficient tool for screening for GAD and assessing its severity in clinical practice and research.

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The PHQ-9: validity of a brief depression severity measure.

K Kroenke, R L Spitzer, J B Williams (2001)

While considerable attention has focused on improving the detection of depression, assessment of severity is also important in guiding treatment decisions. Therefore, we examined the validity of a brief, new measure of depression severity. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a self-administered version of the PRIME-MD diagnostic instrument for common mental disorders. The PHQ-9 is the depression module, which scores each of the 9 DSM-IV criteria as "0" (not at all) to "3" (nearly every day). The PHQ-9 was completed by 6,000 patients in 8 primary care clinics and 7 obstetrics-gynecology clinics. Construct validity was assessed using the 20-item Short-Form General Health Survey, self-reported sick days and clinic visits, and symptom-related difficulty. Criterion validity was assessed against an independent structured mental health professional (MHP) interview in a sample of 580 patients. As PHQ-9 depression severity increased, there was a substantial decrease in functional status on all 6 SF-20 subscales. Also, symptom-related difficulty, sick days, and health care utilization increased. Using the MHP reinterview as the criterion standard, a PHQ-9 score > or =10 had a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 88% for major depression. PHQ-9 scores of 5, 10, 15, and 20 represented mild, moderate, moderately severe, and severe depression, respectively. Results were similar in the primary care and obstetrics-gynecology samples. In addition to making criteria-based diagnoses of depressive disorders, the PHQ-9 is also a reliable and valid measure of depression severity. These characteristics plus its brevity make the PHQ-9 a useful clinical and research tool.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): UCL Open Environ

Journal ID (publisher-id): UCLOE

Title: UCL Open Environment

Abbreviated Title: UCL Open Environ

Publisher: UCL Press (UK )

ISSN (Electronic): 2632-0886

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 03 November 2022

Publication date (Electronic, collection): 2022

Volume: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: e051

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy

[2 ]School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

[3 ]Department of Psychology and Human Development, University College London, London, UK

[4 ]Departments of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Author notes

*Corresponding author: E-mail: gianluca.esposito@ 123456unitn.it

Author information

Alessandro Carollo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2737-0218

Andrea Bizzego https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1586-8350

Giulio Gabrieli https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9846-5767

Keri Ka-Yee Wong https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2962-8438

Adrian Raine https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3756-4307

Gianluca Esposito https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9442-0254

Article

DOI: 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000051

PMC ID: 10171408

SO-VID: 4684a46a-52df-42a1-a645-c722a7668697

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.