Artikel
Psychosocial stress across times of crises: Results from the population-based German National Cohort study
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Autoren
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Daniela Costa
- Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
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Alexander Kluttig
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Janka Massag
- Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
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Oliver Purschke
- Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
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Rafael Mikolajczyk
| Veröffentlicht: | 6. September 2024 |
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Gliederung
Text
Background and aims: It has been reported that mental health was impaired during the pandemic, however, less is known about the recovery after pandemic and the effects of the more recent crises. We aimed to describe and compare stress levels in different time intervals, covering the pre- and pandemic period, the outbreak of war in Ukraine, energy crisis and inflation, and the more recent periods.
Methods: Participants from the National German Cohort (NAKO) from the Halle study-center, who attended the first follow-up examination (FU1) starting in the second half 2019 were invited to participate in six-monthly online surveys. The questionnaire includes the PHQ-stress module questionnaire (PHQ-st). It consists of ten statements being rated on a scale from 0 (not bothered) to 2 (bothered a lot), leading to a score ranging from 0 to 20. The same questionnaire was included in the baseline assessment (2014-16 for these participants) and in FU1. We selected the group of participants who was recruited in 2019 and had complete data on PHQ-st at least in one following online survey (n= 778) and calculated the mean and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the periods January-June and July -December. Results were stratified by sex and age groups (≤45; >45 and ≤65; >65).
Results: The mean age was 52.7 (standard deviation: 12.9) in January 2019, and 53% of the participants were women. Women under and 45 years old had the highest PHQ-st mean score at FU1 with 3.79 (95% CI: 3.32; 4.27) compared to men and older women. Their highest mean score was 6.05 (95% CI: 5.44; 6.66) in the second half of 2021, which was also the highest mean score reported among the participants over the whole study period. For all studied intervals, women had higher scores than men. In both sexes, stress levels decreased with age. The stress levels remained elevated until the end of the observation period, indicating lack of recovery from the increase initiated during the pandemic.
Conclusions: Our findings confirm the lack of recovery from stress in the post-pandemic period. Mostly younger people are affected and women are more affected than men are.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
The authors declare that a positive ethics committee vote has been obtained.
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