Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hungarian Adults

Abstract

We aimed to explore psychological effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Hungarian adults in the time of the national quarantine situation in May 2020.We conducted a cross-sectional observational study with the use of an anonymous online questionnaire that consisted of 65 items. The following measuring instruments were used: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10); The General Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD)-2; The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-2; European Quality of Life Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS); Self-administered inventory of complaints (Hungarian questionnaire); Shortened (Hungarian) version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire; 2 open-ended questions to examine the participants’ mood and ways of coping during the pandemic. The data of 431 participants were analyzed, their average age was 47.53 ± 11.66 years, and the percentage of females was 90%. The mean of participants’ scores were the following: 19.34 ± 7.97 for perceived stress, 73.05 ± 21.73 for health status, and 8.68 ± 4.65 for neurotic complaints. Thirty-four and one-tenth percent of participants were depressed, 36.2% were anxious, and they tended to use problem-focused coping strategies more frequently than emotion-focused ones. We found significant correlations between all of the seven examined psychological variables. Our results highlight the importance of stress management in the psychological support of healthy adults in quarantine situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Culture Related Factors May Shape Coping During Pandemics

“…Consistent with our findings, other studies have generally found anxiety to be significantly linked with emotion-focused coping and with a decreased use of problem-focused coping (Whatley et al, 1998;Rahnama et al, 2017). In line with our results, studies on the COVID-19 outbreak among Hungarian adults (Szabó et al, 2020) and Chinese adolescents and children (Duan et al, 2020) linked anxiety with increased affective coping and decreased rational coping. Other studies on the COVID-19 pandemic also linked higher levels of anxiety with emotionfocused coping (Mariani et al, 2020;Rogowska et al, 2020), and attributed their stronger link to the uncontrollable nature of the stressor (Mariani et al, 2020).…”

“…Furthermore, while one third of the participants shared their households with three or more individuals, only 6% lived alone, and 28% lived with an elderly individual -all recognized features of collectivistic societies (Vandello and Cohen, 1999) -the scores of individualism and rational styles of coping significantly exceeded the scores of collectivism and affective styles of coping. In line with our results, another Eastern European study on the COVID-19 pandemic also showed that problem-focused coping exceeded emotion-focused coping (Szabó et al, 2020). The higher rates of individualism in our sample can be explained by the predominance of younger participants; in line with the previous study by Jamagidze et al (2011), our results confirmed the growing individualism among younger generations of Georgia.…”

Perceived Stress and Increased Food Consumption during the ‘Third Wave’ of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain

“…The results of this study show that a high percentage of respondents experienced moderate stress in January–February 2021, when the number of cases and deaths in Spain rose again following the relaxation of measures in the previous month (Christmas). Our numbers related to moderate and high stress (83.6%) werehigher than those obtained by other authors [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ] who conducted their studies during the lockdown or immediately after it from March to May 2020. This difference may be due to the study population, but can be attributed to the characteristics of this new period in the pandemic.…”

“…It has been almost a year since the beginning of the lockdown to the date of the current study, which could have influenced the respondents’ responses, although they reported almost always feeling nervous or stressed about the pandemic and being upset that things were out of their control, they also reported almost always suggesting that they often feel that things are going well and that they have everything under control in relation to the pandemic. It should not be forgotten that perceived stress is defined as a person’s understanding of the stress he or she is exposed to at a given time or in a specific period [ 36 ], and possible coping measures. If negative perception of coping increases, it may lead to anxiety and/or depression, and decreased quality of life including sleep problems [ 38 ].…”

A koronavírusjárvány-helyzet pszichológiai hatásai és azok enyhítése – áttekintő közlemény 441 magyar felnőtt véleményével

“…A COVID-19 járványhelyzet pszichés hatásait vizsgáltuk 2020 tavaszán a felnőtt magyar lakosság körében egy 65 kérdéses, anonim, on-line kérdőívvel, és kutatásunkban olyan stresszel való megküzdési stratégiákat terveztünk beazonosítani, amelyek segíthettek a járványhelyzet okozta nehézségekkel megbirkózni. 7 Mérőeszközünk segítségével a következő tényezőket vizsgáltuk: észlelt stressz szintje; szorongásos és depressziós jegyek mértéke; egészségi állapot szintje; "átlagos panaszszám"; gyakori stresszel való megküzdési stratégiák típusa; illetve kettő nyílt kérdés feltevésével a koronavírusjárvány okozta pszichés hatásokat vizsgáltuk (A. "Hogyan hat a koronavírusjárvány-helyzet az Ön hangulatára?…”