Mental Health of Chinese Online Networkers under COVID-19: A Sociological Analysis of Survey Data

Yang Xiao, Yanjie Bian and Lei Zhang
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Yang Xiao: School of Philosophy and Government, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China
Yanjie Bian: Institute for Empirical Social Science Research, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Lei Zhang: Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 23, 1-17

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a recent survey of Chinese WeChat networkers ( n = 2015, August 2020) about China’s mental health conditions under COVID-19. The purpose of the survey was to measure symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization by using a standard 18-item battery and assess how the results were related to an individual’s socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and social capital under an ongoing pandemic. The survey reveals that the pandemic has had a significant impact, as the respondents had more serious mental symptoms when their residential communities exhibited a greater exposure to the spread of the virus. The socioeconomic status of the respondents was negatively associated with the mental symptoms. It modified the impact of COVID-19, and its effect was substantially mediated by measures of lifestyle and social capital.

Keywords: mental health; socioeconomic status; lifestyle; social capital; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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