A longitudinal mixed-methods population study of the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychological and social adjustment to a global threat

2019冠状病毒病大流行导致全球对行动自由、社会和经济活动实行前所未有的限制。大流行可能在人群中引起恐惧，影响行为，进而可能传播或限制病毒的进一步传播。社会和经济限制也可能对人口的心理健康产生重大影响，特别是对弱势群体的影响，从而影响国家在疫情结束后的恢复能力。为了调查这些心理健康影响，有必要在大流行早期和整个过程中使用有效的措施收集数据，这些措施涉及心理健康和决策。在我们的工作导致这个应用程序之前，没有研究解决这个问题。在谢菲尔德大学和阿尔斯特大学的初始种子资金下，我们在3月23日那一周评估了2025名英国成年人的心理健康和其他相关变量，这些成年人在英国人口中极具代表性，并在4月20日至30日期间对他们进行了第二波随访，随访率为69%。我们不仅测量了心理健康，还测量了许多其他社会健康。我们的工作已经被内阁办公室、英格兰公共卫生部和卫生与社会保障部采用。我们要求为进一步的五波数据收集提供资金（包括一波增加抽样，以确保英国的四个国家/省得到充分代表）。我们还寻求资助，通过电话对弱势群体（如老年人、已有疾病的人）进行定性访谈，对与感染风险感知相关的决策过程进行认知测试，对样本中的子群体进行更详细的调查。以及短暂体验抽样（即人们在一天中随机间隔接触，询问他们的经历和感受），一直持续到2021年3月，也就是人们希望的危机结束之后。我们将全面了解一个国家在危机中的心理，并及时向公众和政府发布我们的发现，并将数据提供给其他科学家。

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented global restrictions on freedom of movement, social and economic activity. Pandemics may cause fear in the population, affecting behaviour which in turn may propagate or restrict the further spread of the virus. Social and economic restrictions may also have a major impact on population mental health, especially affecting vulnerable groups, influencing the nation's ability to recover once the pandemic is over. To investigate these mental health effects, it is necessary to collect data using validated measures capturing mental health and decision-making early and throughout the pandemic. Prior to our work leading to this application, no research has addressed this. With initial seed funding from the Universities of Sheffield and Ulster, we assessed mental health and other relevant variables in 2025 UK adults who are highly representative of the UK population in the week of March 23rd, and followed them up in a second wave between April 20th and 30th, with a 69% follow-up rate. We measured not only mental health but many other social and Our work is already being used by the Cabinet Office, Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care. We request funding for five further waves of data collection (including one wave of increased sampling to ensure that the four nations/provinces of the UK are fully represented). We also seek funding for more detailed investigations of subgroups within our sample using qualitative interviews of vulnerable people (e.g. older people, people with pre-existing medical conditions) conducted over the telephone, cognitive testing of decision-making processes relevant to the perception of infection risk, and momentary experience sampling (in which people are contact at random intervals throughout the day to ask them about their experiences and feelings) extending until March 2021 after the hoped-for end of the crisis. We will achieve a complete picture of the psychology of a country during crisis and release our findings to the public and government in a timely manner, and make the data available to other scientists.