Changes in Perceived Stress and Lifestyle Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in The Netherlands: An Online Longitudinal Survey Study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantial implications for physical and mental wellbeing. This study investigated changes, over time, in lifestyle behaviors and perceived stress during the initial phase of the pandemic and associations with COVID-19 symptoms, in the Dutch general population. An online longitudinal survey study was performed with pre-lockdown measurements in February, and subsequently in April and June 2020 (n = 259, mean age 59 ± 14 years, 59% women). Self-report questionnaires were used to assess weight, diet quality, physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking. Perceived stress was measured using the validated perceived stress scale (PSS-10). The presence of COVID-19 symptoms (yes/no) was defined as fever, or >3 of the following symptoms: weakness/tiredness, muscle ache, dry cough, loss of smell/taste, and breathing difficulties. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models, adjusted for age, sex, educational level, marital status and (change in) employment status. Minimal increases over time were observed in alcohol intake (0.6 ± 0.7 to 0.7 ± 1.1 glasses/day, p = 0.001) and smoking (9.5 ± 8.7 to 10.9 ± 9.4 cigarettes/day among 10% smokers, p = 0.03), but other lifestyle behaviors remained stable. In April 2020, 15% reported COVID-19-related symptoms, and in June 2020, this was 10%. The presence of COVID-19 symptoms was associated with increased perceived stress (pinteraction = 0.003) and increased alcohol consumption (pinteraction = 0.03) over time. In conclusion, in this prospective study, COVID-19 symptoms were associated with increases in perceived stress and alcohol consumption. Future research on biopsychosocial determinants and underlying mechanisms of lifestyle changes, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is needed.

The Role of Selected Psychological Factors in Healthy-Sustainable Food Consumption Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Correlational analyses revealed significant associations of all constructs with the HST index, suggesting that a more positive psychological profile contributed not only to adopting healthier food consumption behaviors, but also to making more sustainable food choices. Prior works support these findings by underlining the effects of emotional aspects on food habits and choices [14,15,17,58]. Accordingly, it is acknowledged how experiencing negative emotions may lead to overeating.…”

“…To date, what has been scarcely addressed, however, is the relationship between the adoption of sustainable food choices and psychological factors. More broadly, diverse studies have exclusively explored the associations of an individual's psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic with lifestyle and health behavior changes [14][15][16][17], adopting, however, an individual-centric framework. As specifically concerns the changes in dietary behaviors, recent studies showed that stay-at-home restrictions, including teleworking and as social isolation, in some cases, to have triggered stress, anxiety and mood disorders throughout the population [18], ultimately affecting food choices.…”

“…More specifically, the study has a twofold purpose: (i) to analyse dietary changes taking into account both the healthiness and the sustainability of food-related choices, and (ii) to further explore their associations with the psychological responses to the pandemic, namely pandemic-related depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, and the perceived subjective well-being during the lockdown. Based on the aforementioned prior works [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], we hypothesize that, during the pandemic, depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms may have contributed to negatively affect healthy-sustainable food choices, while higher subjective well-being may have increased the tendency to adopt healthier and more sustainable eating behaviors.…”

Heterogeneous trajectories of perceived stress and their associations with active leisure: a longitudinal study during the first year of COVID-19

“…The authors explained this finding by assuming that adolescents commonly experience stress regardless of the pandemic, and thus pandemic-related stressors did not greatly affect their normative stress levels. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have scrutinized in adults the potential heterogeneity of trajectories (i.e., change over time) of perceived stress during the pandemic, and the findings of the previous variable-centered longitudinal studies on perceived stress are inconsistent ( 14 , 15 , 17 , 18 ).…”

Did You Just Cough? Visualization of Vapor Diffusion in an Office Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis

“…To the best of our knowledge, CFD simulation of the effect of using an air-purification device which also has the effect of altering the air-flow contours has not been investigated. Further, recent studies which focused on the concern to public health posed by the COVID-19 pandemic [ 24 , 25 ] do not approach this from the CFD perspective. In this work, we use CFD to examine the air-flow behavior in a room shared by two occupants, in which an air decontamination device, called a Polyester Filter and UV light (PFUV) dehumidifier is used.…”