Psychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among settled women: A longitudinal study.
Jaqueline Lemos de Oliveira, Janaina Cristina Pasquini de Almeida, Antonio Jose Correa de Pauli and 3 others
PMID 36888794WHAT IT FOUND
Women in rural settlements who viewed their social environment positively maintained better physical health and fewer mental disorder symptoms during the pandemic.
Those with negative perceptions experienced worsening physical health, though overall psychological quality of life improved across the group.
Key findings
01Women with more mental disorder symptoms experienced worsening physical quality of life over time, while those with better social environment perception improved.
02Perception of the social environment was inversely related to mental disorder symptoms, acting as a protective factor against emotional distress.
03Satisfaction with social support, rather than the number of supporters, distinguished women with fewer mental disorder symptoms and better quality of life.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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
Severe attrition: only 13 of 53 recruited women completed all four phases, limiting generalizability. Convenience sample from a single rural settlement in Brazil. Self-reported data susceptible to recall and social desirability bias. Telephone data collection in later phases may have influenced participants' responses due to awareness of being monitored. Small sample size reduces statistical power for detecting subtle changes. No control group or comparison to non-settled populations.
Declared interests
None reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that psychological resilience was universal or that mental health improved for all women. The study only followed 13 women who completed all phases, and those with more mental disorder symptoms experienced worsening physical health. The overall improvement in psychological scores may reflect survivorship bias or the effect of being monitored via telephone, not necessarily a true population-wide resilience.