Mental Health and the Symptoms of PTSD in People with Depression and Anxiety Disorders during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Paulina Beata Golińska, Mariusz Cieślak, Olimpia Hubert and Mariola Bidzan
Additional contact information
Paulina Beata Golińska: Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk, 80-557 Gdansk, Poland
Mariusz Cieślak: Institute of Psychology, University of Lodz, 90-136 Lodz, Poland
Olimpia Hubert: Faculty of Psychology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, 81-745 Sopot, Poland
Mariola Bidzan: Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk, 80-557 Gdansk, Poland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic in people with no diagnosis of mental illness, as well as in people who were diagnosed with depression or anxiety. Moreover, this study aimed to investigate the interplay between PTSD symptoms and self-assessed mental health associated with well-being. The 210 participants were divided into 3 groups: mentally healthy, participants with diagnosed depression, and participants with anxiety disorders. To evaluate the subjective well-being of the participants, the Polish adaptation of the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (MHC–SF) was applied. The Impact Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was used to measure the severity of PTSD symptoms. At least a moderate worsening of PTSD symptoms was observed in participants of all groups. The results were as follows: healthy participants M = 37.35 ( SD = 18.46); participants with depression M = 36.05 ( SD = 18.02); participants with anxiety M = 44.52 ( SD = 18.08). The participants diagnosed with depression showed the lowest level of mental well-being M = 41.58 ( SD = 15.02). Conclusion: People diagnosed with depression had both the lowest level of well-being and the lowest severity of symptoms specific to PTSD. In all three groups, lower emotional well-being was linked to greater PTSD symptoms.

Keywords: COVID-19; well-being; PTSD; depression; anxiety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5542/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5542/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:11:p:5542-:d:560032

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().