Thanks, Dr. Ogilvie.
Moving on to depression, first of all.... Comparing males and females, and consistent with what we would have predicted based on past pandemics, there was a significant increase in depressive symptoms that was quite a bit higher in females compared to males as we moved from pre-pandemic to phase one. As pandemic controls started to loosen, we found a decrease in those depressive scores.
When we separated the data by age and not sex, our data showed that the highest burden was borne by the youngest age group—those 25 to 30 years old—and among our sample of trans and non-binary individuals, the scores were clinically significantly higher than the females.
We then moved on to look at extreme depression. Females experienced a four times greater increase in their rate of extreme depression from pre-pandemic to phase one, which was clinically significantly higher than for males. With regard to the trans and non-binary group, their pandemic rates of severe depression also doubled from pre-pandemic to phase one.
Anxiety can be defined as the fear of the unknown combined with a loss of control, so using a validated measure of anxiety that taps into worries and anxiety, we found a very similar pattern to what was found with depression: significantly higher rates for females, and a significantly greater increase from pre-pandemic to phase one, with the highest burden being borne by the youngest age group, 25- to 30-year-olds. This was also found when we focused specifically on clinically significant anxiety: Nearly 20% of the females during phase one of the pandemic fell into clinically significant anxiety rates.
One facet of depression is loneliness, which we asked about in a separate question. Again, the sex-specific findings were replicated, and the highest burden was borne by the 25- to 30-year-olds.
With regard to intimate partner violence or IPV, emerging data do show that, since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, reports of IPV have increased worldwide as a result of mandatory lockdowns. We asked about a list of behaviours like being hit, thrown, kicked, beaten, etc. Our data were based on only the female population in a relationship.