Annett Lotzin, Linda Krause, Elena Acquarini, Dean Ajdukovic, Xenia Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous, Vittoria Ardino, Kristina Bondjers, Maria Böttche, Małgorzata Dragan, Margarida Figueiredo-Braga, Odeta Gelezelyte, Piotr Grajewski, Jana Darejan Javakhishvili, Evaldas Kazlauskas, Lonneke Lenferink, Chrysanthi Lioupi, Brigitte Lueger-Schuster, Trudy Mooren, Luisa Sales, Aleksandra Stevanovic, Josefin Sveen, Lela Tsiskarishvili, Irina Zrnic Novakovic, Ingo Schäfer & ADJUST Study Consortium

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic is a health emergency resulting in multiple stressors that may be related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Objective

This study examined relationships between risk and protective factors, pandemic-related stressors, and PTSD during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Data from the European Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) ADJUST Study were used. N = 4,607 trauma-exposed participants aged 18 years and above were recruited from the general populations of eleven countries (Austria, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden) from June to November 2020. We assessed sociodemographic (e.g. gender), pandemic-related (e.g. news consumption), and health-related (e.g. general health condition) risk and protective factors, pandemic-related stressors (e.g. fear of infection), and probable PTSD (PC-PTSD-5). The relationships between these variables were examined using logistic regression on multiple imputed data sets.

Results

The prevalence of probable PTSD was 17.7%. Factors associated with an increased risk for PTSD were younger age, female gender, more than 3 h of daily pandemic-related news consumption (vs. no consumption), a satisfactory, poor, or very poor health condition (vs. a very good condition), a current or previous diagnosis of a mental disorder, and trauma exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors associated with a reduced risk for PTSD included a medium and high income (vs. very low income), face-to-face contact less than once a week or 3–7 times a week (vs. no contact), and digital social contact less than once a week or 1–7 days a week (vs. no contact). Pandemic-related stressors associated with an increased risk for PTSD included governmental crisis management and communication, restricted resources, restricted social contact, and difficult housing conditions.

Conclusion

We identified risk and protective factors as well as stressors that may help identify trauma-exposed individuals at risk for PTSD, enabling more efficient and rapid access to care.