Examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the network approach to psychopathology: Analysis of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Health (ELSA-Brasil) cohort over a 12-year timespan

Suen, Paulo; Bacchi, Pedro Starzynski; Razza, Laís B.; Santos, Leonardo Afonso dos; Fatori, Daniel; Klein, Izio; Passos, Ives Cavalcante; Smoller, Jordan W.; Bauermeister, Sarah; Goulart, Alessandra Carvalho; Santos, Itamar de Souza; Lotufo, Paulo A; Heeren, Alexandre; Brunoni, André R.

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102512

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Although we focused on the GAD-7 to align with prior research on the network structure of anxiety symptoms during the COVID crisis (i.e., Hoffart et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2020), one may want to ensure that the key role of excessive worrying would thus also appear with other measurements tools. Reassuringly, recent research has confirmed this observation and bolsters our confidence that one can generalize from our findings (e.g., Suen et al, 2021;Taylor et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Excessive Worrying as a Central Feature of Anxiety during the First COVID-19 Lockdown-Phase in Belgium: Insights from a Network Approach

et al. 2021

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Since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020, the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has profoundly impacted public health and the economy worldwide. But there are not the only ones to be hit. The COVID-19 pandemic has also substantially altered mental health, with anxiety symptoms being one of the most frequently reported problems. Especially, the number of people reporting anxiety symptoms increased significantly during the first lockdown-phase compared to similar data collected before the pandemic. Yet, most of these studies relied on a unitary approach to anxiety, wherein its different constitutive features (i.e., symptoms) were tallied into one sum-score, thus ignoring any possibility of interactions between them. Therefore, in this study, we seek to map the associations between the core features of anxiety during the first weeks of the first Belgian COVID-19 lockdownphase (n = 2,829). To do so, we implemented, in a preregistered fashion, two distinct computational network approaches: a Gaussian graphical model and a Bayesian network modelling approach to estimate a directed acyclic graph. Despite their varying assumptions, constraints, and computational methods to determine nodes (i.e., the variables) and edges (i.e., the relations between them), both approaches pointed to excessive worrying as a node playing an especially influential role in the network system of the anxiety features. Altogether, our findings offer novel data-driven clues for the ongoing field's larger quest to examine, and eventually alleviate, the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Excessive Worrying as a Central Feature of Anxiety during the First COVID-19 Lockdown-Phase in Belgium: Insights from a Network Approach

et al. 2021

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“…In Japan, in children and adolescents under 20 during the closure of schools in the first wave of the pandemic, no excess suicides were reported (Isumi et al, 2020). The authors suggested that the negative effects (fears about the pandemic, family economic difficulties, limited access to basic health facilities, and reduced social contacts) and the positive effects of the epidemic (greater time with family, increased social cohesion, decreased academic fees, and problems with peers in school) on suicides would be nullified (Suen et al, 2022). In the case of Brazil, it is possible that the 19% decrease in the number of suicides between those of 10 to 29 years of age was influenced by the possible predominance of positive pandemic effects on their incidence in relation to negative effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Excess suicides in Brazil: Inequalities according to age groups and regions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Orellana

Souza

2022

Int J Soc Psychiatry

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed more than six million direct deaths. Low-and middle-income countries, such Brazil, were severely hit, not only due to direct effects on mortality, but also for its indirect effects on other causes of deaths. Aims: The objective of this study was to estimate the excess suicides in Brazil and evaluate patterns within and between its regions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Method: The observed suicides are gathered from the mortality information system of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The estimates of expected suicides, according to sex, age group, bimonthly period and region, were reached through quasi-Poisson generalized additive models, with adjustment for overdispersion. The analyses were performed in R software, version 3.6.1 and RStudio, version 1.2.1335. Results: From March 2020 to December 2020, 10,409 suicides were observed in Brazil, resulting in an overall decrease of 13%, in comparison to the expected rate for the period. There were excess suicides of 26% in men from the Northern region in the 60 years and more age group, as well as in women from the Northern region in the 30 to 59 years age group in two consecutive bimonthly periods. Excess suicides of 40% was also observed in women in the 60 years and more age group from the Northeastern region. Conclusions: Despite the overall decrease in suicides in Brazil over the period assessed, substantial excess suicides were observed in different age groups and sexes from the Northern and Northeastern regions of the country, which are regions that are historically more prone to health and socioeconomic inequalities.

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“…Second, we only assessed IU through self-reported items, and did not include concurrent behavioral measurements of IU (for a discussion, see Bottesi et al, 2019;Hale et al, 2016). Third, this study was conducted during the COV-19 pandemic, characterized by great levels of uncertainty and an increased prevalence of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders (e.g., Suen et al, 2022;Huang & Zhao, 2020;Santomauro et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2020). We cannot exclude a potential overestimation of the global prevalence of IU in the present study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is there an all-embracing “intolerance to uncertainty” construct? French Adaptation and Validation of the Intolerance to Uncertainty Scale-Revised

Mouguiama-Daouda¹,

Blanchard²,

Heeren³

2023

Preprint

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Intolerance to uncertainty is a trait-like disposition largely studied in psychopathology and known to be involved in many psychological disorders. Yet, the very operationalization of this construct has prompted debate in the literature. Three different models have been regularly discussed: a correlated two-factor solution, a bifactorial solution, and a single-factor structure. A growing body of evidence suggests that the bifactorial model represents the adequate factorial solution; however, its validity has never been tested in a large French-speaking sample. Moreover, uncertainty remains regarding the associations between IUS-R and other psychological constructs, especially stress and depression. This project was designed to overcome these limitations. To do so, we translated the scale into French and tested (n = 728) via confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) whether the French version would better fit with a bifactorial-, correlated, or single-factor structure, as implied by previous works. We also examined how IUS-R was related to stress, depression, anxiety, and worry. Our results pointed to a bifactorial structure as the best-fitting model and provided evidence of a strong general intolerance of uncertainty factor more reliable and accounting for significantly more common variance than each subscale factor. We discuss how this bifactorial structure impacts the conceptualization of IU.

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Examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the network approach to psychopathology: Analysis of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Health (ELSA-Brasil) cohort over a 12-year timespan

Cited by 13 publications

References 60 publications

Excessive Worrying as a Central Feature of Anxiety during the First COVID-19 Lockdown-Phase in Belgium: Insights from a Network Approach

Excessive Worrying as a Central Feature of Anxiety during the First COVID-19 Lockdown-Phase in Belgium: Insights from a Network Approach

Excess suicides in Brazil: Inequalities according to age groups and regions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Is there an all-embracing “intolerance to uncertainty” construct? French Adaptation and Validation of the Intolerance to Uncertainty Scale-Revised

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