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Mental health
Original research
Sex and age differences in clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety among people in Australia in the first month of COVID-19 restrictions: a national survey
  1. Karin Hammarberg,
  2. Thach Tran,
  3. Maggie Kirkman,
  4. Jane Fisher
  1. Global and Women's Helath, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Karin Hammarberg; karin.hammarberg{at}monash.edu

Abstract

Objectives To identify sex and age differences in clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety and the factors associated with these differences among adults in Australia during COVID-19-related restrictions.

Design Anonymous online survey.

Setting Australia.

Participants Adults aged over 18 years living in Australia were eligible and 13 829 contributed complete data. Of these, 13 762 identified as female (10 434) or male (3328) and were included in analyses.

Interventions None.

Outcome measures Clinically significant symptoms of depression (≥10 on Patient Health Questionnaire 9) or anxiety (≥10 on Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale 7 (GAD-7)), and experiences of irritability (GAD-7 item 6).

Results Women were more likely than men to have clinically significant symptoms of depression (26.3% (95% CI 25.4 to 27.1) vs 20.1% (95% CI 18.7 to 21.5), p<0.001) and anxiety (21.8% (95% CI 21.0 to 22.6) vs 14.2% (95% CI 13.0 to 15.4), p<0.001) and to have experienced irritability in the previous fortnight (63.1% (95% CI 62.1 to 64.0) vs 51.4% (95% CI 49.7 to 53.2), p<0.001). They were also more likely than men to be doing unpaid work caring for children (22.8% (95% CI 22.0 to 23.6) vs 8.6% (95% CI 7.7 to 9.6), p<0.001) and dependent relatives (9.8% (95% CI 9.2 to 10.3) vs 5.7% (95% CI 4.9 to 6.5), p<0.001) which made significant contributions to the mental health outcomes of interest. Loss of employment, fear of contracting COVID-19 and feeling a severe impact of the restrictions were associated with poorer mental health in women and men of all ages.

Conclusions Rates of clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety were higher among women than men. Rather than being intrinsically more vulnerable to mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, the higher risk of symptoms of anxiety and depression among women may in part be explained by their disproportionate burden of unpaid caregiving.

  • mental health
  • public health
  • social medicine
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042696

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors KH, TT, MK and JF contributed to the conceptualisation of the research question and interpretation of data. TT analysed the data. KH led the manuscript writing. TT, MK and JF provided constructive feedback and approved the final version.

    • Funding This work was supported by an untied philanthropic donation from Professor John McBain and Dr Penny Foster.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval The research was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (2020-24080-42716).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request. Data are available from the first author upon reasonable request.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.