Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic as a predictor of daily psychological, social, and health-related outcomes

Abstract

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, striking public health measures have been implemented to encourage physical distancing in order to slow the spread of disease. However, the impact of these measures on health and wellbeing is not well understood. In the current study a daily diary methodology was used to investigate the effects of social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic on a variety of outcomes with 230 undergraduate students. Participants completed an online diary for 3 days, reporting on daily social distancing behaviors, psychological wellbeing/resources, social/interpersonal connection with others, health behaviors, and health outcomes. Overall, daily social distancing (close adherence to social distancing guidelines) was associated with decreases in psychological wellbeing/resources, less social/interpersonal connection with others (including technology-mediated communication), fewer positive health behaviors, and increased reports of stress-related physical illness symptoms. Discussion centers on implications of these findings as well as the importance of identifying ways to mitigate the effects of these necessary but costly measures on health and wellbeing.

Keywords:

• Coronavirus
• COVID-19
• daily diary
• health
• social connection
• social distancing
• social isolation

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the efforts of Brianna Absalon, Maxine Boyd, Halley Jeanne Dante, and Gavriella Rubin who assisted with this project.

Notes

1 Given the time sensitive nature of this data collection, rather than basing the sample size on a power analysis, the sample for this study was simply based on recruiting the maximum number of participants possible over the time span that data was being collected.

2 The reliability was somewhat low on this variable. This is likely due to the fact that participants who were engaging in healthier behaviors on a given day were not necessarily all engaging in the same pattern of healthy behaviors (e.g., some may have been eating more healthfully and spending time outside, whereas others were spending time doing something spiritual and exercising). Nonetheless, higher scores on the composite variable still indicated higher levels of engagement in healthy behaviors. Additionally, I ran all analyses on the individual health items and found that they all individually reached significance and in the predicted direction. However, in an effort to be concise I report them here in terms of the larger composite variable.

Additional information

Funding

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upport for this project was provided by a Summer Undergraduate Research Project Grant from Loyola Marymount University.