Everyday life experiences for evaluating symptoms of depression and anxiety : a multi-method approach

Abstract

Psychological resilience has been intensively studied across different settings and populations in recent decades, but the processes and mechanisms of resilience across different life challenges are understudied. Recent research suggests that everyday life is the fundamental context that stress resilience manifests. Two interrelated studies were conducted to examine whether and how sustainment of daily routines could be beneficial to better stress adaptation.

Study 1 contextualized the stress adaption of a population-representative cohort (n = 4,042) through maintaining regular daily routines amidst the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, in which individuals’ daily life were drastically upset. Person-centered approach was utilized to study the mental health impacts measured as symptoms of anxiety and depression on individuals experiencing disruptions of their daily routines. Latent profile analysis revealed different patterns of disrupted daily routines, which were associated with distinct demographics, socioeconomic factors, and psychiatric symptoms. Participants with the most disrupted daily routines had the highest levels of psychiatric symptoms. Participants whose daily routines were not disrupted showed the lowest levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms relative to counterparts in other profiles. Participants with profiles of severe disruptions were more likely to be non-married and to have lower material assets relative to those with no disruption.

Study 2 investigated the resilience processes in natural setting to demonstrate how sustainment of diverse daily routines would be associated with mental health outcomes measured as daily positive and negative emotions. One hundred and thirty-four participants completed end-of-day daily diaries over two weeks. Multilevel models examined the associations of routines diversity and emotional well-being from both between-person and within-person perspectives. Results showed that positive emotions were of positive associations with state and trait levels of secondary routines diversity and of inverse associations with state level of primary routines diversity. The inverse association between positive emotions and ongoing stressor(s) was contingent on the trait level of primary routines diversity, such that the inverse association was significant only at low trait level of primary routines diversity. Negative emotions were of positive associations with ongoing stressor(s) and of inverse association with state level of diversity of secondary routines.

In conclusion, sustainable daily routines practice needs the upholding of the routines in everyday living. In addition to performing basic primary routines regularly, cultivating and maintaining a broad range of secondary routines, especially exercising, socializing, and leisure activities evenly is important to facilitate stress adaptation in everyday life.