Psychosocial predictors of Covid-19 infection in UK Biobank

Abstract

Background:
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, data on its psychosocial predictors are limited. We therefore aimed to explore psychosocial predictors of COVID-19 infection at the UK Biobank (UKB).

Methods:
This was a prospective cohort study conducted among UKB participants.

Results:
The sample size was N = 104 201, out of which 14 852 (14.3%) had a positive COVID-19 test. The whole sample analysis showed significant interactions between sex and several predictor variables. Among females, absence of college/university degree [odds ratio (OR) 1.55, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.45–1.66] and socioeconomic deprivation (OR 1.16 95% CI 1.11–1.21) were associated with higher odds of COVID-19 infection, while history of psychiatric consultation (OR 0.85 95% CI 0.77–0.94) with lower odds. Among males, absence of college/university degree (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.45–1.68) and socioeconomic deprivation (OR 1.12, 95% CI 1.07–1.16) were associated with higher odds, while loneliness (OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.78–0.97), irritability (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.83–0.99) and history of psychiatric consultation (OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.75–0.97) were associated with lower odds.

Conclusion:
Sociodemographic factors predicted the odds of COVID-19 infection equally among male and female participants, while psychological factors had differential impacts.

Rights

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdad009

Repository URI

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/290284/