The Impact of Mental Health and Sociodemographic Characteristics on Quality of Life and Life Satisfaction during the Second Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic—Results of a Population-Based Survey in Germany

Abstract

A decreased quality of life was shown for numerous factors at the beginning of the pandemic. However, it is important to identify people who are at-risk for long-term impairments during the pandemic and its aftermath. Within this study, we aimed to investigate quality of life within a German population-based sample (2515 participants; 51.6% female; mean age 50.09 years) during the second year of the pandemic (2021). Our results showed that the majority reported no pandemic-associated change in quality of life at this state of the pandemic. Higher life satisfaction was associated with fewer mental health problems, no pre-existing somatic and psychiatric disorders, higher income, no income loss during the pandemic, living with others, and younger age. In contrast, in a high-risk group encompassing participants with lower quality of life, only mental health, pre-existing somatic disorders, and living alone had significant associations with quality of life, indicating a smaller scope for improvement in this high-risk group. Age, income loss, and depressive symptoms predicted a decrease in quality of life since the beginning of the pandemic. Our results highlight the importance of mental health, especially in times of pandemic, and underline the need for low-threshold mental health support.

Psihičko zdravlje geekova

“…Because of the specific context of the pandemic, there is a possibility that the general degradation in mental health (35) has hidden the usually existing differences between geeks and others. However, this would be in contradiction with the research indicating that those with previous mental health problems are at a special risk for mental health issues because of the pandemic (33). In that case, we would not expect the difference to disappear, but maybe even get larger.…”

“…However, since the samples differed in sociodemographic characteristics (Table 1), these differences in mental health, and maybe even the lack of differences, might be better explained by these sociodemographic differences than by some geek-specific characteristics. The geek sample had less individuals with low income, characteristic that is related to higher life satisfaction during the pandemic (33), so this might be the reason why life satisfaction in the geek sample was higher. However, it also had more participants of younger age, which is related to lower life satisfaction during the pandemic (34,35).…”

“…Međutim, s obzirom da su se uzorci razlikovali prema sociodemografskim karakteristikama, moguće je da su ove razlike u psihičkom zdravlju, a možda čak i nedostatak razlika, rezultat razlika u sociodemografskim karakteristikama, a ne rezultat nekih osobina specifičnih za geekove. U uzorku geekova bilo je manje pojedinaca s niskim prihodima, što je povezano s višim zadovoljstvom životom tijekom pandemije (33), odnosno zbog toga je zadovoljstvo životom u uzorku geekova moglo biti veće. Međutim, u tom je uzorku također bilo i više mlađih sudionika, što je pak povezano s nižim zadovoljstvom životom tijekom pandemije (34,35).…”

Parental stress and physical violence against children during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic: results of a population-based survey in Germany

“…In our sample, the mean parental stress was higher compared to a similar population representative sample during a slightly earlier stage of the pandemic [ 57 ]. Although not very comparable as in the study by Kölch and colleagues, the PSS was used with only 17 instead of 18 items, this may point towards a decrease in PSS with relaxations of Corona restrictions, which co-occurs with an improvement in quality of life from earlier to later stages of the pandemic [ 58 ]. Concerning changes in parental stress during the pandemic, we observed a slight increase in parental stress on average compared to before the pandemic.…”

Coronavirus Anxiety, COVID Anxiety Syndrome and Mental Health: A Test Among Six Countries During March 2021

“…Research conducted across the globe has documented numerous indicators of greater prevalence of mental health symptoms and clinical conditions (Jia et al 2021;Su et al 2023) during the pandemic (Blanchflower and Bryson 2022;Xiong et al 2020), with many subgroups continuing to struggle with such problems (Penninx et al 2022). Such elevated mental health symptoms have been linked to poorer quality of life and a higher degree of impairment in daily functioning (Geprägs et al 2022). Unfortunately, many individuals during the pandemic did not receive any care or appropriate treatment due to a myriad of factors (e.g., challenges in access to care, limited number of qualified service providers, lack of awareness of the severity of problems being experienced, policies pertaining to social restriction; Aknin et al 2022).…”