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

Table 2 Descriptive statistics for depression and anxiety symptoms before (20 years) and during (22 years) the COVID-19 pandemic, n = 1039, weighted

	Before COVID-19 pandemic (20y)	During COVID-19 pandemic (22y)	P Value for differences before vs. during the pandemic
Depressive symptoms, mean (SD)	9.30 (6.42)	9.59 (6.79)	.153
Severe depression symptoms, N (%) ^a	64 (6.2%)	80 (8.1%)	.041
Anxiety symptoms, mean (SD)	4.73 (4.61)	4.45 (4.70)	.060
Severe anxiety symptoms, N (%)^a	51 (4.9%)	49 (4.7%)	.807

Data were compiled from the final master file of the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (1998–2020), Québec Government, Québec Statistic Institute
^aSevere 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