COVID-19 Lockdown Stressors and Buffers: A Narrative Review

Abstract

This narrative review summarizes and critiques the relatively limited literature on the psychological effects of COVID-19 lockdowns in many parts of the world. These have included anxiety, depression, PTSD symptoms, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. Risk factors or predictors have also been studied including the demographics of being young and living alone. Feeling isolated and lonely, stressed, bored, fatigued, and touch deprived have also been predictive. Specific worries about getting the virus and having financial problems were surprisingly less stressful. Although social media was expected to buffer negative effects, those data were mixed including that texting had positive effects, internet had both positive and negative effects, and Facebook time had negative effects. Buffers for stress and psychological problems included spirituality and meditation, touching, exercise, working from home, and other home activities. Methodological problems with these studies included their being self-report surveys that were often not representative of the larger
populations and did not include baseline data, limiting any assumptions of causality. Nonetheless, collectively the data will help inform interventions for pandemic lockdowns like those of COVID-19.