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Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about significant behavioural changes, one of which is increased time spent at home. This could have important public health implications. This study aimed to explore longitudinal patterns of 'home confinement' (defined as not leaving the house/garden) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated predictors and mental health outcomes. Methods: Data were from the UCL COVID-19 Social Study. The analytical sample consisted of 25 390 adults in England who were followed up for 17 months (March 2020–July 2021). Data were analysed using growth mixture models. Results: Our analyses identified three classes of growth trajectories, including one class showing a high level of persistent home confinement (the home-confined, 24.8%), one changing class with clear alignment with national containment measures (the adaptive, 32.0%), and one class with a persistently low level of confinement (the unconfined, 43.1%). A range of factors were associated with the class membership of home-confinement trajectories, such as age, gender, income, employment status, social relationships and health. The home-confined class had the highest number of depressive (diff = 1.34–1.68, p < 0.001) and anxiety symptoms (diff = 0.84–1.05, p < 0.001) at the end of the follow-up than the other two classes. Conclusions: There was substantial heterogeneity in longitudinal patterns of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with a persistent high level of confinement had the worst mental health outcomes, calling for special attention in mental health action plans, in particular targeted interventions for at-risk groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a growing global awareness of the psychological consequences of long COVID, supported by emerging empirical evidence. However, the emergence and long-term trajectories of psychological symptoms following the infection are still unclear.Aims: To examine when psychological symptoms first emerge following infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the long-term trajectories of psychological symptoms comparing long- and short-COVID groups.Method: We analysed longitudinal data from the UCL COVID-19 Social Study (March 2020 to November 2021). We included data from adults living in England who reported contracting SARS-CoV-2 by November 2021 (n = 3115). Of these, 15.9% reported having had long COVID (n = 495). They were matched to participants who had short COVID using propensity score matching on a variety of demographic, socioeconomic and health covariates (n = 962 individuals with 13 325 observations) and data were further analysed using growth curve modelling.Results: Depressive and anxiety symptoms increased immediately following the onset of infection in both long- and short-COVID groups. But the long-COVID group had substantially greater initial increases in depressive symptoms and heightened levels over 22 months follow-up. Initial increases in anxiety were not significantly different between groups, but only the short-COVID group experienced an improvement in anxiety over follow-up, leading to widening differences between groups.Conclusions: The findings support work on the psychobiological pathways involved in the development of psychological symptoms relating to long COVID. The results highlight the need for monitoring of mental health and provision of adequate support to be interwoven with diagnosis and treatment of the physical consequences of long COVID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are concerns that keyworkers may be at a greater risk for psychological distress than non-keyworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little research has included keyworkers outside of the healthcare sector or has disaggregated keyworkers into different subgroups. Aims: To examine longitudinal changes in mental health over 12 months during the COVID-19 pandemic comparing four different groups of keyworkers with non-keyworkers. Method: Longitudinal data were from 21 874 adults living in England (21 March 2020 to 22 February 2021). Latent growth modelling was utilised to compare growth trajectories of depressive and anxiety symptoms in non-keyworkers and four types of keyworkers: (a) health and social care workers, (b) teachers and child care workers, (c) public service workers, and (d) essential services keyworkers (such as food chain or utility workers). Results: When accounting for both time-invariant and time-varying covariates, keyworkers in the essential services category had consistently higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms than non-keyworkers across the whole of the study period. There was little difference in the mental health trajectories between health/social care, teachers/child care and public service worker categories and non-keyworkers. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the risk for poorer mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic varies within the broad category of keyworkers generally, and that those working in utility, food chain and transport roles are especially at risk. Future research should focus on identifying which aspects of working conditions may be contributing to occupational stress in these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]