The Psychosocial Impacts of COVID-19 on a Sample of Australian Adults: Cross-sectional Survey and Sentiment Analysis

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had enormous impacts on people’s lives, including disruptions to their normal ways of behaving, working, and interacting with others. Understanding and documenting these experiences is important to inform the ongoing response to COVID-19 and disaster preparedness efforts. Objective The aim of this study was to examine the psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 on a sample of Australian adults. Methods The data analyzed were derived from a larger cross-sectional survey of Australian adults that was administered during the month of May 2020. Participants (N=3483) were asked in which ways COVID-19 had most greatly impacted them; the responses produced a text data set containing 1 COVID-19 impact story for each participant, totaling 86,642 words. Participants also completed assessments of their sociodemographic characteristics (sex, age, financial stress), level of concern related to COVID-19, personality trait profile, and satisfaction with life. Impact stories were analyzed using sentiment analysis and compared against the Theoretical Domains Framework to determine the most frequently impacted life domains. Finally, a multinomial regression analysis, stratified by participant sex, was conducted to identify the associations of psychological and demographic socializations with sentiment toward COVID-19. Results In total, 3483 participants completed the survey, the majority of whom were female (n=2793, 80.2%). Participants’ impact stories were most commonly categorized as neutral (1544/3483, 44.3%), followed by negative (1136/3483, 32.6%) and positive (802/3483, 23.1%). The most frequently impacted life domains included behavioral regulation, environmental context and resources, social influences, and emotions, suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting these areas of participants’ lives the most. Finally, the regression results suggested that for women, lower satisfaction with life and higher financial stress were associated with increased likelihood of negative, rather than positive, sentiment (P<.001); however, the proportion of variance in the sentiment that was explained was very small (<5%). Conclusions Participant sentiment toward COVID-19 varied. High rates of neutral and negative sentiment were identified. Positive sentiment was identified but was not as common. Impacts to different areas of people’s lives were identified, with a major emphasis on behavioral regulation and related domains such as social influences, environmental context and resources, and emotions. Findings may inform the development of mental health and social support resources and interventions to help alleviate the psychosocial consequences of disaster response measures.

The contribution of meaning making and religiosity to individuals’ psychological wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic: Prosocial orientation matters

“…We administered eight items developed ad hoc to rate on a 5-point scale, from (1 = not at all) to (5 = a lot), how much the COVID-19 have impacted participants’ life domains (i.e., personal/relatives’ health, family relationships, personal/family finances, work activities, personal course of study). At the time of this writing no appropriate validated pre-existing tool was available, thus the research team specifically constructed the eight items of the questionnaire in accordance with the literature, which identified specific key life domains (see Ryan et al, 2021 ). After confirming that this scale was mono-dimensional, χ 2 (20) = 52.388, p = < .001; RMSEA = 0.080 , 95% CI [0.054, 0.107], p = 0.031; CFI = 0.915, and reliable (α = .772), we adopted it as control variable in our statistical models.…”

Perceived household financial decline and physical/mental health among adolescents during the COVID-19 crisis: Focusing on gender differences

“…Furthermore, individuals’ mental health has also deteriorated: More people have suffered from depression ( Burke et al, 2020 ), anxiety ( Burke et al, 2020 , Qiu et al, 2020 , Wang et al, 2020 ), and distress ( Taylor et al, 2020 , Wang et al, 2020 ) because of the fear of COVID-19 ( Taylor et al, 2020 ), social distancing, lack of interaction with others ( El Omrani et al, 2021 , Oosterhoff et al, 2020 ), and limited physical activity ( Reigal et al, 2021 ). Previous studies have also found that financial difficulties are negatively related to mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Campbell-Scherer et al, 2021 , Halford et al, 2020 , Ryan et al, 2021 ).…”