Monistrol-Mula, AnnaFélez-Nobrega, MireiaDomènech-Abella, JoanMortier, PhilippeCristóbal Narváez, PaulaVilagut Saiz, Gemma, 1975-Olaya, BeatrizFerrer Forés, Maria MontserratGabarrell-Pascuet, AinaAlonso Caballero, JordiHaro Abad, Josep Maria2022-03-032022-03-032022Monistrol-Mula A, Felez-Nobrega M, Domènech-Abella J, Mortier P, Cristóbal-Narváez P, Vilagut G, Olaya B, Ferrer M, Gabarrell-Pascuet A, Alonso J, Haro JM. The impact of COVID-related perceived stress and social support on generalized anxiety and major depressive disorders: moderating effects of pre-pandemic mental disorders. Ann Gen Psychiatry. 2022 Feb 14;21(1):7. DOI: 10.1186/s12991-022-00385-31744-859Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/52608Background: We assessed the moderating effect of pre-pandemic mental disorders on the association of COVID-related perceived stress and social support with mental health. Methods: A nationally representative sample of 3500 Spanish adults was interviewed in June 2020 (mean age 49.25 years, ± 15.64; 51.50% females). Mental health included Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD; GAD-7, cut-off point of ≥ 10), Major Depressive Disorders (MDD; PHQ-8, cut-off point of ≥ 10) and the comorbid form (those screening positive for GAD and MDD). COVID-related stress was assessed using an adapted version of the Peri Life Events Scale, and social support using the Oslo Social Support Scale. Logistic regression models were used to assess if COVID-related stress and social support were related to mental health outcomes and interactions were conducted to examine whether these relationships differed according to the presence of pre-pandemic mental disorders. Results: Higher COVID-related stress was associated with a higher risk of lower mental health. The association between COVID-related stress with GAD and MDD was significantly moderated by pre-pandemic mental disorders, except for comorbid GAD + MDD. Higher levels of social support were linked to better mental health. Only the association between social support and GAD was significantly moderated by pre-pandemic mental disorders. That is, for those without pre-pandemic mental disorders, higher levels of social support decreased the odds of GAD, while minor decreases were observed in those with pre-pandemic mental disorders. Conclusions: The impact of COVID-related stress and social support on specific indicators of mental health may vary depending on the existence of a previous mental disorder.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12991-022-00385-3Affective disordersCOVID-stress syndromePsychiatric disordersSARS-Cov2Social determinantsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess