The COVID-19 pandemic continues to generate threats to occupational health, safety, and well-being. As a result, it presents an opportunity to deepen the field's insights into occupational health ...psychology (OHP), and to offer practical guidance that may help workers, organizations, and society mitigate the pandemic's negative effects. This special section of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (JOHP) addresses several implications of the pandemic for well-being and work behavior. The pandemic raises many additional questions deserving of research attention. Such topics include the implications of organizations' evolving workforce and workplace decisions, and work as a mechanism for public health and societal well-being. OHP research also has the potential to generate ideas that may prove useful for addressing future crises. A greater consideration of context may help the field achieve such aims.
University students are vulnerable to mental health issues during their academic lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, university students faced mental distress due to lockdowns and the transition to ...e-learning. However, it is not known whether these students were also affected specifically by COVID-19-related traumatic events. This study examined the impact of COVID-19-related traumatic events on 2277 university students from two federal institutions of higher education in Brazil. The university students completed an online questionnaire covering demographics, lifestyle habits, health characteristics, COVID-19-related traumatic events, and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. The results showed that an increased intensity of COVID-19-related traumatic events was positively associated with stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, and each specific type of event was associated with these symptoms. In addition, we found a negative association between these symptoms and male sex and age and a positive association with having or having had a history of cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, or mental disorders or another disease diagnosed by a physician. In conclusion, this study emphasizes the heightened risk of mental health issues in university students in the face of COVID-19-related traumatic events. Women, young people and people who have or have had a history of disease were the most vulnerable to mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Type and intensity of COVID-19-related traumas were collected from college students.•Increased intensity of traumas was positively associated with mental symptoms.•Each type of trauma was associated with mental symptoms.•Mental symptoms were associated with sex, age, and previous disease.•COVID-19-related traumas can exacerbate suffering even in the non-frontline of the pandemic sample.
In the U.S., intentional self-poisonings with analgesics that are available without a prescription increased from 2000 to 2018. Given concerns regarding mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 ...pandemic, we examined and compared trends in pediatric and adult intentional self-poisoning with acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen from 2016 to 2021 using the National Poison Data System (NPDS) to see if these trends have continued. We extracted annual case counts of all suspected suicide attempts from intentional poisoning, and of suspected suicide attempts resulting in major effects or death, from the NPDS for non-prescription single ingredient adult formulation acetaminophen, non-prescription single ingredient adult formulation aspirin, single ingredient formulation ibuprofen, and single ingredient formulation naproxen. We enumerated the cases by year, age, and gender.
Most cases of intentional self-poisoning within the review period involved acetaminophen and ibuprofen and the 13–19-year-olds constituted the highest proportion of intentional self-poisoning cases across age groups for all four analgesics. Cases involving females predominated cases involving males by 3:1 or greater. The 13–19-year-old age group also represented the largest proportion of cases that resulted in major clinical effects or deaths. An increasing trend in suicide poisoning cases with acetaminophen and ibuprofen was observed in the 6-19-years age group and this trend appeared to exacerbate from 2020 to 2021 corresponding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic period.
Concern for the psychological health of people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is necessary. Previous studies suggested that self-compassion contributes to life-satisfaction. However, little is ...known about the mechanism underlying this relation. This study investigated the relationship between self-compassion and life-satisfaction among Chinese self-quarantined residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we examined the mediating effect of positive coping and the moderating role of gender in this relation. Participants consist of 337 self-quarantined residents (129 men, 208 women) from a community in China, who completed measures of demographic information, Self-Compassion Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire. The results revealed that self-compassion was positively linked with life-satisfaction. Moreover, positive coping partially mediated the relationship between self-compassion and life-satisfaction for males and not females. In the female group, self-compassion was positively linked with positive coping and life-satisfaction; however, positive coping and life-satisfaction were not significantly linked. These findings indicated that intervention focus on self-compassion could increase life-satisfaction in self-quarantined people during the COVID-19, and self-compassion may contribute to life-satisfaction via positive coping only in the male.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted mental health, but the global evolution of mental health problems during the pandemic is unknown. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal ...studies to evaluate the global evolution of mental health problems during the pandemic.
To conduct this systematic review, we searched for published articles from APA PsycInfo (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), and Web of Science. Longitudinal (at least 2 waves during the COVID-19 pandemic) and peer-reviewed articles on mental health problems conducted as from 2020 and after were included in the current study. Of 394 eligible full texts, 64 articles were included in the analysis. We computed random effects, standardized mean differences, and log odds ratio (LOR) with 95 % CIs. The meta-analysis protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021273624).
Results showed that anxiety (LOR = −0.33; 95 % CI, −0.54, −0.12) and depression symptoms (LOR = −0.12; 95 % CI, −0.21, −0.04) decreased from baseline to follow up. However, other mental health problems showed no change. Higher prevalence rates (40.9 %; 95 % CI, 16.1 %–65.8 %) of psychological distress were found in months after July 2020, respectively, while there were no significant month differences for the prevalence of other mental health problems. Higher means of anxiety (d = 3.63, 95 % CI, 1.66, 5.61), depression (d = 3.93; 95 % CI, 1.68, 6.17), and loneliness (d = 5.96; 95 % CI, 3.22, 8.70) were observed in May 2020. Higher prevalence of anxiety, depression, and PTSD and higher means of anxiety, depression and loneliness were observed in North America. The prevalence of psychological distress and insomnia was higher in Latin America and Europe, respectively.
There is a lack of longitudinal studies in some parts of the world, such as Africa, the Caribbean, India, the Middle East, in Latin America, and Asia.
Results indicated that anxiety and depression symptoms decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic while other mental health problems showed no statistical change. The findings reveal that mental health problems peaked in April and May 2020. Prevalence of mental health problems remains high during the pandemic and mental health prevention, promotion and intervention programs should be implemented to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global population.
•This meta-analysis found a decrease in anxiety and depression from baseline to last follow-up during the COVID-19 pandemic.•PTSD, psychological distress, suicidal ideations, loneliness, and substance use did not change from baseline to last follow-up.•Participants developed significantly more anxiety, depression symptoms and loneliness in May 2020 compared to other months.•Prevalence of clinically significant symptoms remains high since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.•Higher prevalence of anxiety, depression, and PTSD and higher means of anxiety, depression and loneliness were observed in North America compared to Europe, Asia, Latin America, and others.•The prevalence of psychological distress and insomnia was higher in Latin America and Europe, respectively.
Objective
The COVID‐19 pandemic and the resulting public restrictions pose a psychological burden for humans worldwide and may be particularly detrimental for individuals with mental disorders. ...Therefore, the current study explored effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on eating disorder (ED) symptoms and other psychological aspects in former inpatients with anorexia nervosa (AN).
Method
One‐hundred and fifty‐nine patients with AN—discharged from inpatient treatment in 2019—completed an online survey on contact history with COVID‐19, changes in ED symptoms and other psychological aspects, health care utilization, and strategies patients employed to cope during the pandemic.
Results
Approximately 70% of patients reported that eating, shape and weight concerns, drive for physical activity, loneliness, sadness, and inner restlessness increased during the pandemic. Access to in‐person psychotherapies and visits at the general practitioner (including weight checks) decreased by 37% and 46%, respectively. Videoconference therapy was used by 26% and telephone contacts by 35% of patients. Patients experienced daily routines, day planning and enjoyable activities as the most helpful among the most used coping strategies.
Discussion
The COVID‐19 pandemic poses great challenges to patients with AN. ED‐related thoughts and behaviors may be used as dysfunctional coping mechanisms to regain control over the current circumstances. E‐mental health interventions appear to be promising for supporting AN patients during these hard times. Furthermore, interventions addressing symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as intolerance of uncertainty might help them manage their ED symptoms.
Pregnant women who experience chronic energy deficiency (KEK) tend to give birth to LBW babies and have a greater risk of death. Objective: This study was to analyze the factors associated with the ...incidence of KEK in pregnant women. Methods: The study was conducted for 2 months, in 2020 at Anggaberi Health Center and Soropia Health Center in Konawe district. Design: cross sectional, quantitative data collection and secondary data. The research sample was pregnant women who were registered in the maternal cohort data, which were taken randomly as many as 115 people. Univariate data analysis was carried out descriptively to see the distribution of the values of the causal factors, bivariate analysis was carried out to analyze the relationship between the causal factors and the incidence of KEK through statistics, namely Chi-square test and cross tabulation with a significance value of 0.05. The results of the study found that the factors associated with the incidence of KEK were age (p-value = 0.000), education level (p-value = 0.000), employment status (p-value = 0.000), and pregnancy weight (p-value = 0.000 ). The incidence of KEK is more likely in mothers who have characteristics such as age < 20 years and > 35 years, low education, not working and low pregnant weight. Therefore, it is hoped that an increase in food security at the family level can be socialized through providing information to preconception women through counseling, flip-charts and posters.
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