Background The spread of COVID-19 has affected people’s daily lives, and the lockdown may have led to a disruption of daily activities and a decrease of people’s mental health. Aim To identify correlates of adults’ mental health during the COVID-19 lockdown in Belgium and to assess the role of meaningful activities in particular. Methods A cross-sectional web survey for assessing mental health (General Health Questionnaire), resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale), meaning in activities (Engagement in Meaningful Activities Survey), and demographics was conducted during the first Belgian lockdown between April 24 and May 4, 2020. The lockdown consisted of closing schools, non-essential shops, and recreational settings, employees worked from home or were technically unemployed, and it was forbidden to undertake social activities. Every adult who had access to the internet and lived in Belgium could participate in the survey; respondents were recruited online through social media and e-mails. Hierarchical linear regression was used to identify key correlates. Results Participants (N = 1781) reported low mental health (M = 14.85/36). In total, 42.4% of the variance in mental health could be explained by variables such as gender, having children, living space, marital status, health condition, and resilience (β = −.33). Loss of meaningful activities was strongly related to mental health (β = −.36) and explained 9% incremental variance (R2 change = .092, p < .001) above control variables. Conclusions The extent of performing meaningful activities during the COVID-19 lockdown in Belgium was positively related to adults’ mental health. Insights from this study can be taken into account during future lockdown measures in case of pandemics.

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Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hypermobility spectrum disorder affect daily life. There is a lack of research that investigates how the disease affects aspects of participation. This study investigates whether there is a difference in the level of participation in society in persons with vascular EDS (N = 18), hypermobile EDS (N = 20), classical EDS (N = 4) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (N = 27), compared to a healthy control group (N = 69) and fibromyalgia (N = 69). In this retrospective case-control study, the Ghent Participation Scale was completed by all participants. Each patient with EDS and HSD was matched by age and sex to healthy controls. The hEDS and HSD group were compared with the healthy control group and a positive control group (persons with fibromyalgia). The results show that there was a significant lower overall participation score for persons with hEDS/HSD compared to the healthy control group. In addition, significant differences were observed in the subscores self-performed activities and delegated activities in the hEDS/HSD group compared to healthy controls, being HEDS/HSD patients who obtained the lower scores. Further research is needed to obtain representative results of the participation level for the EDS/HSD population. In this way, interventions can be set up for patients with EDS in an evidence-based way and that are appropriate to the patient’s level of participation.

IntroductionEngaging in meaningful activities contributes to health and wellbeing. Research identifies meaningfulness by analysing retrospective and subjective data such as personal experiences in activities. Objectively measuring meaningful activities by registering the brain (fNIRS, EEG, PET, fMRI) remains poorly investigated.MethodsA systematic review using PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library.FindingsThirty-one studies investigating the correlations between daily activities in adults, their degree of meaningfulness for the participant, and the brain areas involved, were identified. The activities could be classified according to the degree of meaningfulness, using the attributes of meaningfulness described in the literature. Eleven study activities contained all attributes, which means that these can be assumed to be meaningful for the participant. Brain areas involved in these activities were generally related to emotional and affective processing, motivation, and reward.ConclusionAlthough it is demonstrated that neural correlates of meaningful activities can be measured objectively by neurophysiological registration techniques, “meaning” as such has not yet been investigated explicitly. Further neurophysiological research for objective monitoring of meaningful activities is recommended.

Introduction Engagement in meaningful activities (MA) is significantly associated with morbidity, mental health and mortality, regardless age. However, it is known that a gender difference occurs in daily activities: men choose significantly more for leisure activities, work or study, while women opt more for domestic work and social activities. During the covid-19 lockdown, it can be expected that men and women experience the severe restrictions differently. In this study we wanted to identify differences regarding restriction in MA and mental health in particular for men and women 50 y and older. Methods In Belgium, strict measures were imposed between March 13 and May 4th. During this lockdown, a large-scale web-survey with more than 2000 Belgian respondents, has been carried out. In total, 420 people 50+ participated (237 women/183 men). Results The lockdown had a major impact on the daily activities and mental health of everyone, but slightly more on those of women 50+. They scored significantly lower in engaging in MA as measured by the Engagement in Meaningful Activities Scale (EMAS) (31.36; sd 7.09 versus 33.78; sd 6.35; p.001) and experienced worse mental health measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (13.80; sd 6.70 versus 11.59; sd 5.87; p&lt;.000) than men 50+. The correlation between EMAS en GHQ was respectively .510 and .540 (p &lt;.000). The MA women attach more importance to could no longer be continued while the typical male activities still could be practiced (even more). Moreover, the daily caring activities, in which women are already more active anyway, interfered much more with the other activities than usual. Conclusions The extent to which activities remained meaningful during the lockdown was crucial. It was obvious that 50-+ women found less meaning in their activities during corona and experienced less mental health. Subsequently, women 50+ turned out to be slightly more vulnerable than men 50+ during the Covid-19 crisis.