Description of impact
Most available public engagement activities on the psychological impact of COVID-19 are based on research that uses cross-sectional data making it impossible to inform the public about changes due to the pandemic. This reduces their true impact as they fail to respond to individuals’ needs to understand “what” and “by how much” COVID-19 has changed the way they feel and act; and “who” is at most risk to be impacted psychologically. Three webinars informed the public of how their personality influences their mental health (e.g. symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress), behaviours (e.g. panic buying) and attitudes during the pandemic focusing on “what has really changed” in our levels of psychopathology since March 2020.Who is affected
UK and GreeceNarrative
The webinar communicated knowledge derived from an ESRC-Impact Acceleration project that analysed and collected new data on personality and psychopathology before and during the pandemic (longitudinal data) in the UK and Greece. These two countries have been affected differently from the pandemic having suffered (as of October 20th 2020), approximately 44,000 and 550 deaths due to COVID-19, respectively. This rare longitudinal dataset offers the opportunity to model changes and to identify individual traits that predict such changes and COVID-19 related experiences and behaviours. The webinars lasted for an hour with approximately 20 minutes at the end to be devoted to Q & A with the presenter.| Impact status | Completed |
|---|---|
| Impact date | 30 Nov 2020 → 03 Dec 2020 |
| Impact level | Engagement |