Depression and anxiety symptoms in young adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a Canadian population-based cohort

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the COVID-19-related stressors and pre-existing vulnerabilities, weighted

	n	%
COVID-19-related stressors
Sex
Male	417	40.1
Female	622	59.9
Living status
Alone	90	8.7
With others	949	91.3
Loss of employment
No	790	76.0
Yes	249	24.0
Loss of education
No	805	77.5
Yes	234	22.5
Positive COVID-19 test
No	1030	99.0
Yes	9	1.0
Daily COVID-19-related news-seeking
< 2 h	783	75.0
≥ 2 h	256	25.0
Living in Montreal
No	831	80.0
Yes	208	20.0
Pre-existing vulnerabilities
Not in education or employed (22 years, pre-pandemic)
No	941	90.6
Yes	98	9.4
Low SES families (15, 17 years)^a
No	873	84.0
Yes	166	16.0
Sexual minority (15, 17 years)
No	921	88.6
Yes (Gay, Lesbian, Asexual)	118	11.4
Low social support (19 years)^a
No	892	87.3
Yes	147	12.7
Low life satisfaction (19 years)^b
No	901	86.7
Yes	138	13.3
Learning disability diagnosis (15, 17 years)
No	963	92.7
Yes	76	7.3
Pre-existing depression symptoms (20 years)
No/low/moderate	975	93.8
Severe^c	64	6.2
Pre-existing anxiety symptoms (20 years)
No/low/moderate	990	95.3
Severe^c	49	4.7

Data were compiled from the final master file of the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (1998–2020), Québec Government, Québec Statistic Institute
Maximum N available ranges from 869 to 1039
^aDefined as scores < 1 standard deviation of the sample mean
^bDefined as scores of 0 to 5 a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means ‘very dissatisfied’ and 10 means ‘very satisfied’
^cSevere symptoms were defined by Centre for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale scores \(\ge\) 21 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale scores \(\ge\) 15

ISSN: 1744-859X