Different Responses to Stress, Health Practices, and Self-Care during COVID-19 Lockdown: A Stratified Analysis

Abstract

The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to analyze the differential impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown (3 April 2020) on stress, health practices, and self-care activities across different Hispanic countries, age range, and gender groups. One thousand and eighty-two participants from Spain, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador took part in this study. Irrespective of the country, and controlling for income level, young people, especially females, suffered a greater level of stress, perceived the situation as more severe, showed less adherence to health guidelines, and reported lower levels of health consciousness, in comparison to their male peers and older groups. However, in the case of self-care, it seems that older and female groups are generally more involved in self-care activities and adopt more healthy daily routines. These results are mostly similar between Colombia, Ecuador, and Spain. However, Chile showed some different tendencies, as males reported higher levels of healthy daily routines and better adherence to health guidelines compared to females and people over the age of 60. Differences between countries, genders, and age ranges should be considered in order to improve health recommendations and adherence to guidelines. Moreover, developing community action and intersectoral strategies with a gender-based approach could help to reduce health inequalities and increase the success of people ́s adherence to health guidelines and self-care-promoting interventions. Future studies should be addressed to explore the possible causations of such differences in more cultural-distant samples and at later stages of the current outbreak.

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health in Peru: Psychological Distress

“…In this way, a 59.7% of the people had high psychological distress (GHQ-12 ≥ 3), a lower value than the one observed in Spain (72.0%) [18]. The percentage of women's participation (56.2%) was lower here than in the study carried out in Spain, with psychological distress was also lower in women in Peru than in Spain, and, similar to most countries investigated, higher psychological distress was found among women than in men [17,18]. It is known that sex is a variable that influences the level of COVID-19 contagion and, in a study on people assisted with COVID-19 conducted in eight Latin American countries, Peru presented a higher percentage of women [4].…”

“…Stress has been more likely to happen in women and young people in Spain, Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile [17,18,45]. Increased stress in young people could be driven by the impact of the pandemic on their work, education, and social life situation and, to a lesser extent, by their perception of health risk, which is more frequent in older people.…”

“…Measures were put in place for the cleaning and disinfection of workspaces, washing and disinfection of hands, and raising awareness for the prevention of contagion in the workplace and personal protection, as well as for the monitoring of workers returning to work through guidelines [8,16]. Differences in sex and age variables have been found regarding the degree of compliance with preventive measures against the COVID-19 contagion among Latin American countries [17], as in other Hispanic countries outside Latin America [18].…”

Rural Social Participation through Osekkai during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…We further found that participants who regularly underwent health checkups tended to have lower social participations with respect to meeting others, which could be a result of health consciousness regarding the risk of COVID-19. Health-conscious people can be sensitive to the COVID-19 pandemic and have their own home-based health control methods, which may lead to their reduced social participation [40,41].…”

Non-Intrusive Assessment of COVID-19 Lockdown Follow-Up and Impact Using Credit Card Information: Case Study in Chile

“…Regarding non-pharmacological interventions [ 12 , 13 , 14 ], many countries or their lower administrative divisions (such as states, regions, or counties) have implemented quarantines and other restrictions of movement, while recommending social distancing, wearing masks and general prophylaxis measures. Concurrently, there is growing concern about the side effects of these measures on the general and at-risk population, specifically children and young adults [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. For instance, the use of urban green spaces has been greatly affected by the pandemic, and it has been valued highly as a resource to overcome the mental burden of the situation [ 19 ].…”