Mental health risk screening: factor structure due to sociodemographic characteristics during COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with mental health symptoms.

Objective: to screen mental health symptoms by validating the factor structure of the screening test related to sociodemographic variables during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method: we worked with 36,811 Mexican (M = 34 years; SD = 11.68), 61.8% (22,743) women, 15.3% (5,643) losing loved ones, 12.7% (4,683) having a COVID-19 condition, and 8.22% (3,027) sought remote psychological care. We required participants to answer the Posttraumatic Stress Checklist (PCL-C), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ), Goldberg’s Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire, Health Anxiety, and Somatization tests in a WebApp.

Results: the Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated good factor structures and measurement invariances of the scales because of participants´ sociodemographic characteristics and their structural equation model.

Discussion: therefore, Women showed re-experimentation, numbing, anxiety, and somatization symptoms. Grieving or suffering a COVID-19 condition associated with generalized anxiety. People seeking psychological care reported somatization symptoms. Also, avoidance predicted symptoms of re-experimentation, and re-experimentation predicted health anxiety. Health anxiety predicted somatization, depression, and generalized anxiety, denoted by hyperarousal symptoms. Depression predicted numbing and hyperarousal symptoms.

Conclusions: there are mental health risks in women, people with loved-one losses, those with a COVID-19 condition, or people seeking psychological care. Future research will show how early interventions interrupt mental health risks associated with the pandemic.