IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0277238.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Roland Pongou
  • Bright Opoku Ahinkorah
  • Stéphanie Maltais
  • Marie Christelle Mabeu
  • Arunika Agarwal
  • Sanni Yaya

Abstract

Background: During major pandemics such as COVID-19, the fear of being infected, uncertain prognoses, and the imposition of restrictions may result in greater odds of emotional and psychological distress. Hence, the present study examines the predictors of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, and how they differ by gender. Methods: Data of 2,756 adults aged 18 years and above from a cross-sectional online survey conducted between July and October 2020 was used for this study. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was carried out. The results were presented as adjusted odds ratio (aOR) with their respective confidence interval (CI). Results: Lower odds of psychological distress were found among males compared to females and among individuals aged 45–64 or 65–84 years compared to those aged 18–44. The odds of psychological distress decreased with a rise in income, with individuals whose annual income was greater than or equal to $100,000 being less likely to experience psychological distress compared to those whose income was less than $20,000. The odds of psychological distress were higher among residents of Ontario compared to residents of Quebec. Similarly, the odds of psychological distress were higher among individuals who reported experiencing COVID-19 symptoms compared to those who did not report any COVID-19 symptoms. The disaggregated results by gender showed that age, province, and self-reported COVID-19 symptoms had significant associations with psychological distress in both males and females, but these effects were more pronounced among females compared to males. In addition, income was negatively associated with psychological distress for both males and females, with this effect being stronger among males. Conclusion: Five exposure variables (gender, age, province, experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and total annual income in 2019) significantly predicted the likelihood of reporting psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Clearly, there is an imminent need to provide mental health support services to vulnerable groups. Additionally, interventions and policies aimed at combating psychological distress during pandemics such as COVID-19 should be gender specific.

Suggested Citation

  • Roland Pongou & Bright Opoku Ahinkorah & Stéphanie Maltais & Marie Christelle Mabeu & Arunika Agarwal & Sanni Yaya, 2022. "Psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(11), pages 1-14, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0277238
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0277238
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0277238&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0277238?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anastasios Papanastasiou & Bradley J. Ruffle & Angela Zheng, 2022. "Compliance with social distancing: Theory and empirical evidence from Ontario during COVID‐19," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 705-734, February.
    2. Adam Abba-Aji & Daniel Li & Marianne Hrabok & Reham Shalaby & April Gusnowski & Wesley Vuong & Shireen Surood & Nnamdi Nkire & Xin-Min Li & Andrew J. Greenshaw & Vincent I.O. Agyapong, 2020. "COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health: Prevalence and Correlates of New-Onset Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in a Canadian Province," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-11, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wuqianhui Liu & Haitao Zhang & Yuan He, 2021. "Variation in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Symptoms and Treatments: A Side Effect of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Henrike Sternberg & Janina Isabel Steinert & Tim Büthe, 2024. "Compliance in the public versus the private realm: Economic preferences, institutional trust and COVID‐19 health behaviors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 1055-1119, May.
    3. Henrike Sternberg & Janina Isabel Steinert & Tim Büthe, 2023. "Compliance in the Public versus the Private Realm: Economic Preferences, Institutional Trust and COVID-19 Health Behaviors," Munich Papers in Political Economy 28, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    4. James Allen IV & Arlete Mahumane & James Riddell IV & Tanya Rosenblat & Dean Yang & Hang Yu, 2021. "Correcting Perceived Social Distancing Norms to Combat COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 28651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Daniel Goetz, 2022. "Does providing free internet access to low‐income households affect COVID‐19 spread?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2648-2663, December.
    6. Medard Kofi Adu & Lauren J. Wallace & Kwabena F. Lartey & Joshua Arthur & Kenneth Fosu Oteng & Samuel Dwomoh & Ruth Owusu-Antwi & Rita Larsen-Reindorf & Vincent I. O. Agyapong, 2021. "Prevalence and Correlates of Likely Major Depressive Disorder among the Adult Population in Ghana during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-19, July.
    7. Muhammad Maaz & Anastasios Papanastasiou & Bradley J. Ruffle & Angela L. Zheng, 2021. "Heterogeneity in the Support for Mandatory Masks Unveiled," Working Papers 210001, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    8. Nnamdi Nkire & Reham Shalaby & Gloria Obuobi-Donkor & Belinda Agyapong & Ejemai Eboreime & Vincent I. O. Agyapong, 2023. "Assessing Resilience and Its Correlates among Residents of Fort McMurray during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(12), pages 1-13, June.
    9. Lewandowski, Piotr & Lipowska, Katarzyna & Smoter, Mateusz, 2024. "Preference for working from home – subjective perceptions of COVID-19 matter more than objective information on occupational exposure to contagion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    10. Shin, Su Hyun & Ji, Hyunjung & Lim, HanNa, 2021. "Heterogeneity in preventive behaviors during COVID-19: Health risk, economic insecurity, and slanted information," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0277238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.