Examining the Longitudinal Associations between Adjustment Disorder Symptoms and Boredom during COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a myriad of stressors, underscoring the relevance of adjustment disorder during these extraordinary times. Boredom—as a feeling and as a dispositional characteristic—is an equally pertinent experience during the pandemic that has been cross-sectionally linked to various mental health difficulties. The current longitudinal study expanded on this work, examining the associations between adjustment disorder symptoms and boredom (both as a feeling and as a trait) over time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community participants completed questionnaires three times, rating their trait boredom at Time 1 and their feelings of boredom and adjustment disorder symptoms (preoccupation with a pandemic stressor and failure to adapt) over the past week at Times 1–3. Latent growth curve analyses found that an increase in feelings of boredom was significantly associated with increased preoccupation with a pandemic stressor and increased difficulties with adapting over time. Additionally, trait boredom significantly predicted changes in preoccupation and the failure to adapt, such that participants high in trait boredom increasingly struggled with these symptoms over time. Our results suggest that increased feelings of boredom and a trait disposition towards boredom can be detrimental to people’s ability to adjust over time to the stressors associated with the pandemic. Boredom, as an aversive state and as a chronic difficulty, may be important to address in treatment approaches for adjustment disorder symptoms during COVID-19.

A longitudinal approach to understanding boredom during pandemics: The predictive roles of trauma and emotion dysregulation

“…Unsurprisingly, research conducted during the COVID-19 outbreak and the 2003 SARS outbreak suggests that boredom is one of the most commonly experienced feelings (e.g., Reynolds et al, 2008;Barari et al, 2020;Droit-Volet et al, 2020;Li et al, 2021;Martarelli et al, 2021;Martinelli et al, 2021;Wessels et al, 2022), as well as that boredom is a key emotional disincentive to complying with social distancing/quarantine guidelines (e.g., DiGiovanni et al, 2004;Wolff et al, 2020;Bieleke et al, 2021;Boylan et al, 2021;Brosowsky et al, 2021;Drody et al, 2022; but see Westgate et al, 2022 for their emerging findings related to pandemic boredom and risky public health behaviors). Equally important, the feeling of boredom and BP have been linked to various psychological problems among adolescents and adults during the pandemic, such as increased alcohol and substance use (e.g., vaping and smoking), problematic social media and Internet use (i.e., Internet addiction), perceived stress, and psychological distress, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia (see Bambrah et al, 2022 for a review). Given the importance of social distancing/quarantine policies in curbing the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., Glogowsky et al, 2021) and the troubling relations between boredom and mental health during COVID-19, it is critical to understand the feeling of boredom as an outcome in its own right.…”

“…All participants provided informed consent before each data collection time point and Qualtrics compensated participants at each time point with a choice of different gift cards for various American and Canadian retailers. A full description of participant recruitment, including how we determined our sample size, participant attrition, and data exclusions, is available publicly 1 and is reported elsewhere (Bambrah et al, 2022). Broadly we recruited participants who resided in the United States (U.S.) and Canada.…”

Shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychological responses from a subjective perspective–A longitudinal mixed-methods study across five European countries

“…In terms of AD, an Austrian study covering two years of the pandemic detected higher mean scores and prevalence in wintertime, characterised by stricter regulations, higher incidence and higher death rates compared with summertime [ 18 ]. For preoccupation and failure to adapt as core symptoms of AD, a significant linear decrease was observed in a Canadian study conducted over the spring of 2020 [ 19 ].…”

“…In addition to environmental factors, personal characteristics (e.g. trait boredom) might also be responsible for changes in mental health [ 19 ].…”

Boredom in the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Beyond measures of the circumstantial changes induced by the pandemic (i.e., an individual’s extent of physical distancing, engagement in safe outdoor activities, and changes to work status), data showed that difficulty with emotional regulation predicted higher levels of boredom proneness. This was perhaps more starkly evident in a larger sample explored by Bambrah and colleagues [ 20 ], who showed that increased feelings of boredom were associated with a preoccupation with the stressors of the pandemic and a difficulty in adapting to those stressors (as measured by the symptoms of adjustment disorder). This relation was exacerbated among the boredom prone.…”