Meaningful Activity, Psychosocial Wellbeing, and Poverty During COVID-19: A Longitudinal Study.
Carrie Anne Marshall, Rebecca Gewurtz, Julia Holmes and 3 others
PMID 36959694WHAT IT FOUND
People living in poverty reported that physical distancing restrictions made daily life harder and reduced meaningful activity.
Depression and anxiety spiked in the autumn of 2020 but returned to baseline by the following spring. Alcohol use increased, though not to hazardous levels.
Key findings
01Engagement in meaningful activity decreased significantly over the first year of the pandemic, driven by a drop between the second and third time points.
02Depression, anxiety, and loneliness scores increased significantly at the second time point before falling back to baseline levels by the third time point.
03Participants described how poverty forced them to choose between engaging in necessary activities like grocery shopping and risking infection, while wealthier individuals could afford delivery.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was conducted in one Canadian province, so findings may not apply elsewhere. High attrition reduced the sample size for longitudinal analysis to 49 participants. The sample was mostly White and women, limiting generalizability to other racial and gender groups. The study was observational and cannot prove that restrictions caused the changes in wellbeing.
Declared interests
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that the return of depression and anxiety scores to baseline means patients were coping well. The qualitative data showed that participants still faced significant barriers and burdens, and the drop in scores may reflect psychological reappraisal or normalization of the situation rather than improvement.