A longitudinal study on depression and anxiety in college students during the first 106-days of the lengthy Argentinean quarantine for the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: The Argentinean quarantine is among the strictest and longest quarantines in the world. To determine if a worsening pattern on mental health would emerge with a prolonged quarantine duration, a longitudinal analysis pertaining to the lengthy mandatory Argentinean quarantine was conducted. Aim: To examine depression and anxiety changes in college students, as a function of quarantine duration, demographic and health-related factors, during successive time cuts of the lengthy mandatory quarantine in Argentina. Methods: We used a longitudinal design, N = 1492 college students. For the first measurement, successive samplings were carried out across quarantine sub-periods of up to 106-days duration. The follow-up was one month later. Results: Particularly women, young, and having a history of mental disorder and suicidal behavior, were more depressed and anxious under mandatory restrictive quarantine conditions. Repeated measures of both depression and anxiety scores remained constantly high during the more restrictive quarantine sub-periods of up to 13 and 53-days duration, and decreased during the less restrictive quarantine sub-period of up to 106-days duration, but with small effect sizes (0.10–0.08). Conclusions: Restrictive quarantine has negative effects on mental health outcomes. Partial spontaneous remissions of depression and anxiety symptoms may be expected with further quarantine relaxations.