Covid, Brexit and Liz Truss mini-budget led to lasting decline in mental health, study finds

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the first **and second Covid lockdowns** also triggered big rises in psychological distress, as measured by the number of people with depression and anxiety.

However, \*\*the first Covid lockdown, when the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, told people to “stay at home”, had a much larger impact\*\*, as measured by a much bigger rise in the UK’s GHQ-12 score. That jump equated to about 900,000 more people in total visiting a family doctor because they had developed symptoms of depression, Jeffery said.

“We observed increased psychological distress immediately after the Brexit referendum and the first Covid-19 lockdown, with more insidious monthly increases in psychological distress after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the 2022 mini-budget,” said Jeffrey.

Andy Bell, the chief executive of the Centre for Mental Health thinktank, said: **“There is clear evidence that Covid had a big impact on mental health.** And it makes sense that the other ‘shocks’ listed here would do so, either directly, by making people feel less secure and less connected, or as after-effects, for example the cost of living crisis.

“It’s also clear that rising distress in the population is not due to a single cause but the effect of all these things added together, made worse by years of austerity giving fewer buffers against ‘shocks’ like this.”