Open AccessMental Health and Social Contact During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study
Author(s) -
Eiko I. Fried,
Faidra Papanikolaou,
Sacha Epskamp
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
clinical psychological science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.74
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 2167-7034
pISSN - 2167-7026
DOI - 10.1177/21677026211017839
Subject(s) - mental health , loneliness , psychology , pandemic , social distance , anxiety , covid-19 , social contact , ecological study , depression (economics) , government (linguistics) , clinical psychology , psychiatry , environmental health , medicine , developmental psychology , population , linguistics , philosophy , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics , macroeconomics
For many students, the COVID-19 pandemic caused once-in-a-lifetime disruptions of daily life. In March 2020, during the beginning of the outbreak in the Netherlands, we used ecological momentary assessment to follow 80 undergraduate students four times per day for 14 days to assess mental health, social contact, and COVID-19-related variables. Despite rapidly increasing rates of infections and deaths, we observed decreases in anxiety, loneliness, and COVID-19-related concerns, especially in the first few days. Other mental health variables, such as stress levels, remained stable, whereas depressive symptoms increased. Despite social-distancing measures implemented by the Dutch government halfway through our study, students showed no changes in the frequency of in-person social activities. Dynamic network models identified potential vicious cycles between mental health variables and being alone, which predicted concerns about COVID-19 and was followed by further mental health problems. Findings and implications are discussed in detail.