New study to explore long-term mental health effects of Covid-19 pandemic

New study to explore long-term mental health effects of Covid-19 pandemic

A global team led University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney aims to track the long-term impacts of Covid-19 on the mental health of thousands of people - from the womb to old age.. The team will explore for the first time what they describe as this coronavirus pandemic's toxic combination of two extreme psychological stressors: existential threat and social isolation.. They are hoping to recruit around 3,000 people from Australia, the UK and US to evaluate their mood before and after the onset of the pandemic, and to track their cognitive function and social networks over the coming months.. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed people's lives so drastically that it is difficult to know how protracted the effects may be," said study's chief investigator Dr Susanne Schweizer from UNSW's School of Psychology.". We're particularly interested in younger people because they are at a time of social reorientation away from the family towards their peers which is all of a sudden being disrupted by social distancing," Schweizer added.. The research team are concerned that the longer-term effects of social isolation in this group may come at a cost to their cognitive development due to schools being closed as they are