IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i16p10279-d891599.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mental Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of Women Receiving the Comprehensive Social Security Allowance in Hong Kong

Author

Listed:
  • Jialiang Cui

    (Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

  • Vanessa Hoi Mei Cheung

    (Felizberta Lo Padilla Tong School of Social Sciences, Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong)

  • Wenjie Huang

    (Society for Community Organization, Hong Kong)

  • Wan Sang Kan

    (Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Abstract

Welfare recipients were often considered the least deserving of COVID-related support. Despite the recent attention paid to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, few studies have explored the mental distress experienced by welfare recipients. This cross-sectional study on female Comprehensive Social Security Allowance recipients in Hong Kong aimed to explore their level of mental distress and its association with a range of risk factors specific to welfare recipients. Hence, 316 valid cases from a local community center responded to our online survey. We found that 52.3%, 23.4%, and 78% of the participants showed moderate to extremely severe depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, respectively. A higher level of mental distress was associated with having a psychiatric diagnosis, poorer social, and greater concerns over disciplining children, the living environment, daily expenses and being infected by COVID-19. Unexpectedly, being married, having a permanent residence, and having a job were not significant protective factors for this group. The models explained 45.5%, 44.6%, and 52.5% of the overall variance in the level of depression, anxiety, and stress ( p < 0.01), respectively. Our findings have important implications for supporting female welfare recipients during a public health crisis and may help frontline staff and professionals provide prompt assistance to this group in need.

Suggested Citation

  • Jialiang Cui & Vanessa Hoi Mei Cheung & Wenjie Huang & Wan Sang Kan, 2022. "Mental Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of Women Receiving the Comprehensive Social Security Allowance in Hong Kong," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-13, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:16:p:10279-:d:891599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10279/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10279/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yibin Ao & Hao Zhu & Fanrong Meng & Yan Wang & Gui Ye & Linchuan Yang & Na Dong & Igor Martek, 2020. "The Impact of Social Support on Public Anxiety amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Timothy P Schofield & Peter Butterworth, 2015. "Patterns of Welfare Attitudes in the Australian Population," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Baak, M. & Koopman, R. & Snoek, H. & Klous, S., 2020. "A new correlation coefficient between categorical, ordinal and interval variables with Pearson characteristics," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Joyce Tik-Sze Li & Chui-Ping Lee & Wai-Kwong Tang, 2022. "Changes in Mental Health among Psychiatric Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hong Kong—A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Eva Spiritus-Beerden & An Verelst & Ines Devlieger & Nina Langer Primdahl & Fábio Botelho Guedes & Antonio Chiarenza & Stephanie De Maesschalck & Natalie Durbeej & Rocío Garrido & Margarida Gaspar de , 2021. "Mental Health of Refugees and Migrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Experienced Discrimination and Daily Stressors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-14, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ana Gama & João Victor Rocha & Maria J. Marques & Sofia Azeredo-Lopes & Ana Rita Pedro & Sónia Dias, 2022. "How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect Migrant Populations in Lisbon, Portugal? A Study on Perceived Effects on Health and Economic Condition," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-10, February.
    2. Cosimo Russo & Alberto Castro & Andrea Gioia & Vito Iacobellis & Angela Gorgoglione, 2023. "A Stormwater Management Framework for Predicting First Flush Intensity and Quantifying its Influential Factors," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 37(3), pages 1437-1459, February.
    3. Gaia Sampogna & Maurizio Pompili & Andrea Fiorillo, 2022. "The Short-Term Consequences of COVID-19 on Mental Health: State of the Art from Available Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-5, November.
    4. Mingna Li & Bo Zhou & Bingbin Hu, 2022. "Relationship between Income and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Ivet Bayes-Marin & Maria Roura-Adserias & Iago Giné-Vázquez & Felipe Villalobos & Marta Franch-Roca & Amanda Lloret-Pineda & Aina Gabarrell-Pascuet & Yuelu He & Rachid El Hafi & Fajar Matloob Ahmed Bu, 2022. "Factors Associated with Depression and Anxiety Symptoms among Migrant Population in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-14, November.
    6. Zane Varpina & Kata Fredheim, 2022. "The Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on migrants’ decision to return home to Latvia," SSE Riga/BICEPS Occasional Papers 16, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    7. Tual Sawn Khai & Muhammad Asaduzzaman, 2022. "‘I Doubt Myself and Am Losing Everything I Have since COVID Came’—A Case Study of Mental Health and Coping Strategies among Undocumented Myanmar Migrant Workers in Thailand," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-16, November.
    8. Tianqi Zhang & Yue Zhou & Ming Li & Haoran Zhang & Tong Wang & Yu Tian, 2022. "Impacts of Urbanization on Drainage System Health and Sustainable Drainage Recommendations for Future Scenarios—A Small City Case in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-24, December.
    9. Leng, Lijian & Li, Tanghao & Zhan, Hao & Rizwan, Muhammad & Zhang, Weijin & Peng, Haoyi & Yang, Zequn & Li, Hailong, 2023. "Machine learning-aided prediction of nitrogen heterocycles in bio-oil from the pyrolysis of biomass," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PB).
    10. Cesar de Lima Nogueira, Silvio & Och, Stephan Hennings & Moura, Luis Mauro & Domingues, Eric & Coelho, Leandro dos Santos & Mariani, Viviana Cocco, 2023. "Prediction of the NOx and CO2 emissions from an experimental dual fuel engine using optimized random forest combined with feature engineering," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    11. Ferdinando Petrazzuoli & Claire Collins & Esther Van Poel & Athina Tatsioni & Sven Streit & Gazmend Bojaj & Radost Asenova & Kathryn Hoffmann & Jonila Gabrani & Zalika Klemenc-Ketis & Andrée Rochfort , 2023. "Differences between Rural and Urban Practices in the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Outcomes from the PRICOV-19 Study in 38 Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-13, February.
    12. dos Santos Ferreira, Greicili & Martins dos Santos, Deilson & Luciano Avila, Sérgio & Viana Luiz Albani, Vinicius & Cardoso Orsi, Gustavo & Cesar Cordeiro Vieira, Pedro & Nilson Rodrigues, Rafael, 2023. "Short- and long-term forecasting for building energy consumption considering IPMVP recommendations, WEO and COP27 scenarios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    13. José Renkens & Els Rommes & Maria van den Muijsenbergh, 2022. "Refugees' Agency: On Resistance, Resilience, and Resources," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-16, January.
    14. Cimpoeru Smaranda & Roman Monica & Kobeissi Amira & Mohammad Heba, 2020. "How are European Migrants from the MENA Countries Affected by COVID-19? Insights from an Online Survey," Journal of Social and Economic Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 9(1), pages 128-143, August.
    15. Zhou, Yu & Chen, Ben & Meng, Kai & Zhou, Haoran & Chen, Wenshang & Zhang, Ning & Deng, Qihao & Yang, Guanghua & Tu, Zhengkai, 2023. "Optimal design of a cathode flow field for performance enhancement of PEM fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
    16. Lanlan Zhao & Xin Zheng & Kai Ji & Zhengsheng Wang & Lingzhi Sang & Xuefei Chen & Ling Tang & Ying Zhu & Zhongliang Bai & Ren Chen, 2022. "The Relationship between Social Support and Anxiety among Rural Older People in Elderly Caring Social Organizations: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-12, September.
    17. Ping Sun & Xiaoming Zhou & Cui Shao & Wenli Wang & Jinkun Sun, 2022. "The Impacts of Environmental Dynamism on Chinese Tour Guides’ Sustainable Performance: Factors Related to Vitality, Positive Stress Mindset and Supportive Policy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-15, July.
    18. Tomasz Michalski & Maciej Brosz & Joanna Stepien & Karolina Biernacka & Michal Blaszczyk & Jakub Grabowski, 2021. "Perceived Stress Levels among Ukrainian Migrant and LGBT+ Minorities in Poland during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-16, December.
    19. Alla Yu. Vladova, 2022. "Remote Geotechnical Monitoring of a Buried Oil Pipeline," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-14, May.
    20. Aina Gabarrell-Pascuet & Helena García-Mieres & Iago Giné-Vázquez & Maria Victoria Moneta & Ai Koyanagi & Josep Maria Haro & Joan Domènech-Abella, 2023. "The Association of Social Support and Loneliness with Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-25, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:16:p:10279-:d:891599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.