Opening up

Nishan Dixit considers how the pandemic has impacted mental health.

A year ago, most of us could never have imagined life would change as dramatically as it has in the face of a pandemic. In an effort to control the spread of Covid-19, the UK government has had to make difficult decisions that continue to profoundly impact our society. Freedoms are restricted and many people are more isolated than ever before, making it easy to feel overwhelmed. The mental health and wellbeing of the population is now in a particularly fragile state, with more than two thirds of UK adults feeling worried about the effect that Covid-19 is having on their life and, indeed, their future.

At the time of writing, Public Health England had found that self-reported mental health and wellbeing worsened during the Covid-19 crisis, with the decline being the largest in April 2020 – the peak of the pandemic. Those who have been hit hardest include young adults and women, who already had the lowest levels of mental health in society prior to Covid-19. This reflects findings that adults with pre-existing mental health conditions are suffering from higher levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness than adults without such conditions. Some recovery has occurred since last April, but not yet to pre-pandemic levels.