Psychological Understanding of Pandemics (PUPS) [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding the psychological impact of living through the COVID-19 Pandemic
IRAS ID
282812
Contact name
Anna Heinen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
14987, R & D PID
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
This study aims to understand the psychological impact of living through a pandemic. We hypothesize that the COVID-19 pandemic will quickly lead to increases in feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, health anxiety, loneliness, phobias, quality of life, uncertainty, obsessive compulsive behaviours and panic in the general population. We aim to track the increase and decrease in these psychological symptoms and measure the span of increased psychological symptoms in relation to the span of the pandemic. We will recruit 1000 participants to complete a survey. We will collect information about their personal circumstances in relation to COVID-19, as well as psychological wellbeing measures. We will ask all participants to complete follow up wellbeing measures at 3 months. \nWe will also complete 12 in-depth, qualitative interviews with 12 participants from four different population groups; patients with existing mental health difficulties, patients with physical health difficulties at high risk from COVID-19, NHS staff and the general population. Using a cognitive behavioural model, we want to characterize a range of thinking errors which people living through a pandemic may experience, e.g. catastrophizing, all or nothing thinking, fortune telling, mind-reading, emotional reasoning, over generalizing, labelling and mental filtering. We will also explore the relative psychological resilience between participants in the four population groups. \n
REC name
London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/HRA/2648
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jun 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion