How did the beginnings of the global COVID-19 pandemic affect mental well-being?

The present study aims to investigate longitudinal changes in mental well-being as well as the role of individual differences in personality traits (Big Five) and the level of Personality Organisation during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Overall, 272 adults (Mage= 36.94, SD...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-01, Vol.18 (1), p.e0279753-e0279753
Main Authors: Levacher, Julie, Spinath, Frank M, Becker, Nicolas, Hahn, Elisabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis
Anxiety
Biology and Life Sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Communicable Disease Control
Contact stresses
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - psychology
Data collection
Epidemics
Evaluation
Fear & phobias
Female
Germany
Humans
Influence
Longitudinal studies
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental Health
Neurosis
Pandemics
Personality
Psychological aspects
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Social Sciences
Stress
Stress (Psychology)
Surveys
Well being
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Summary:The present study aims to investigate longitudinal changes in mental well-being as well as the role of individual differences in personality traits (Big Five) and the level of Personality Organisation during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Overall, 272 adults (Mage= 36.94, SDage= 16.46; 68.62% female, 23.45% male, 0.69% non-binary) took part in our study with four weekly surveys during the lockdown as well as a follow-up one month after restrictions were lifted. To analyse the development of mental well-being during and shortly after the first lockdown in Germany latent growth curve models (LGCM) were calculated. The considered facets of well-being differ by their trajectory. Additionally, results suggest that the lockdown did not affect all facets to the same extent. While Life Satisfaction decreases in the short term as a reaction to the lockdown, Stress and Psychological Strain were reduced after the second week of contact restrictions. When adding personality characteristics, our results showed that Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were the two dimensions associated most strongly with SWB during the first month of the pandemic. Thus, our research suggests that personality traits should be considered when analysing mental well-being.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0279753