Abstract
Objectives: This study examined the association between perceived manageability of debt and risk of depression, anxiety, and mental health help-seeking among a nationally representative sample of adults living in the United Kingdom (UK). Methods: Data was derived from the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study Wave 6 (August/September 2021) which examined the psychological, social, and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK adult population. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the association between different levels of perceived debt manageability (i.e., “easily manageable”, “some problems”, “quite serious problems”, “very serious problems”, “cannot manage at all”) and mental health related outcomes. Results: Almost a quarter of the sample (24%, n = 494) reported debt management problems, and debt manageability associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and mental health help-seeking. After adjusting for demographic variables (e.g. income, receipt of benefits), logistic regression analysis demonstrated a dose-response association between increasing levels of debt manageability problems and mental health outcomes. Specifically, adjusted odds ratios for anxiety ranged from 2.28 (‘some problems’) to 11.18 (‘very serious problems’), for depression ranged from 2.80 (‘some problems’) to 16.21 (‘cannot manage at all’), and for mental health help-seeking ranged from 1.69 (‘some problems’) to 3.18 (‘quite serious problems’, ‘very serious problems’). Conclusion: This study highlights that debt manageability problems represent a robust predictor of depression, anxiety, and mental-health help seeking.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e0274052 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | PLoS ONE |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 9 |
Early online date | 21 Sept 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published online - 21 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:: The initial stages of this project were
supported by start-up funds from the University of
Sheffield (Department of Psychology, the Sheffield
Methods Institute and the Higher Education
Innovation Fund via an Impact Acceleration grant
administered by the university) and by the Faculty
of Life and Health Sciences at Ulster University.
The research was subsequently supported by the ESRC under grant number ES/V004379/1 and
awarded to RPB, TKH, MS, JM, and OM. The
funders had no role in study design, data collection
and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of
the manuscript.
Funding Information:
The initial stages of this project were supported by start-up funds from the University of Sheffield (Department of Psychology, the Sheffield Methods Institute and the Higher Education Innovation Fund via an Impact Acceleration grant administered by the university) and by the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at Ulster University. The research was subsequently supported by the ESRC under grant number ES/V004379/1 and awarded to RPB, TKH, MS, JM, and OM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Shevlin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding Information:
The initial stages of this project were supported by start-up funds from the University of Sheffield (Department of Psychology, the Sheffield Methods Institute and the Higher Education Innovation Fund via an Impact Acceleration grant administered by the university) and by the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at Ulster University. The research was subsequently supported by the ESRC under grant number ES/V004379/1 and awarded to RPB, TKH, MS, JM, and OM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Shevlin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords
- Research Article
- Medicine and health sciences
- Social sciences
- Biology and life sciences
- Anxiety Disorders/epidemiology
- Anxiety/epidemiology
- COVID-19/epidemiology
- Pandemics
- Depression/epidemiology
- Humans
- Adult
- Mental Health
- Depression - epidemiology
- Anxiety Disorders - epidemiology
- Anxiety - epidemiology
- COVID-19 - epidemiology
- Depression
- COVID-19
- Anxiety Disorders
- Anxiety