Mental health and wellbeing among people with informal caring responsibilities across different time points during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-based propensity score matching analysis

Abstract

Aims: Due to a prolonged period of national and regional lockdown measures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been an increase reliance on informal care for informal carers. In light of this, the current study compared the experiences of carers and non-carers on various mental health and wellbeing measures across six key time points during the pandemic. Methods: Data analysed were from the University College London (UCL) COVID -19 Social Study. Our study focused on six time points in England: (1) the first national lockdown (March–April 2020); (2) the beginning of first lockdown rules easing (May 2020); (3) the second national lockdown (November 2020); (4) the third national lockdown (January 2021); (5) the easing of the third lockdown (March 2021); and (6) the end of restrictions (July–August 2021). We considered five mental health and wellbeing measures: depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, loneliness, life satisfaction, and sense of being worthwhile. Propensity score matching was applied for the analyses. Results: We found that informal carers experienced higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms than non-carers across much of the pandemic. During the first national lockdown, carers also experienced a higher sense of life being worthwhile. No association was found between informal caring responsibilities and levels of loneliness and life satisfaction. Conclusion: Given that carers are an essential national healthcare support, especially during a pandemic, it is crucial to integrate carers’ needs into healthcare planning and delivery. These results highlight that there is a pressing need to provide adequate and targeted mental health support for carers during and following this pandemic.