1. Incidence of PTSD in the French population a month after the COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown: evidence from a national longitudinal survey.
- Author
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Alleaume, Caroline, Peretti-Watel, Patrick, Beck, François, Leger, Damien, Vaiva, Guillaume, Verger, Pierre, the COCONEL Group, Seror, Valérie, Cortaredona, Sébastien, Launay, Odile, Raude, Jocelyn, Fressard, Lisa, Legleye, Stéphane, Léger, Damien, L'Haridon, Olivier, Ward, Jeremy K., and COCONEL Group
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POST-traumatic stress disorder , *COVID-19 pandemic , *STAY-at-home orders , *MENTAL health personnel , *POISSON regression , *SUICIDAL ideation - Abstract
Background: In view of experts' warnings about the potential negative mental health consequences of the sudden nationwide lockdowns implemented in many countries to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to study the incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after traumatic events related to this unprecedented lockdown in the French general population.Methods: This longitudinal study among adults (aged =18) consisted of two surveys: the first during the last days of the lockdown and the second a month later. We estimated PTSD incidence with the PCL-5 and ran multiple Poisson regression models to identify factors associated with PTSD.Results: Among the 1736 participants, 30.1% reported at least one traumatic event. PTSD incidence was 17.5% (95% confidence interval CI = 15.7-19.3). It was higher in participants who reported multiple traumatic events, who had high COVID-19-related media use, who had general anxiety disorder (GAD-7) during the lockdown, and who had GAD, depression (PHQ-9), or sleep problems 1 month later. In addition, 43.1% of people with PTSD reported suicidal thoughts.Conclusions: These results should help clinicians to target people who are at high risk of developing PTSD after a pandemic-related lockdown and could benefit from preventive measures. Collaboration between the media and mental health professionals could be envisioned to inform the population about care resources. Follow-up recommendations should also be disseminated to general practitioners to facilitate PTSD screening and ensure that they are aware of the appropriate management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2022
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