Mental health in Europe slumps due to Ukraine war
Published: Tuesday, Feb 20th 2024, 12:14
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The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has had a measurably greater impact on the mental health of people in Europe than the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011 and the coronavirus lockdown in 2020 - including in Switzerland.
This is the result of a study by an international research team with Swiss participation led by psychologists Julian Scharbert and Mitja Back from the German University of Münster. The results were published on Tuesday in the journal "Nature Communications".
The start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine almost two years ago led to a widespread collective collapse in well-being - regardless of the age, gender, political orientation or other characteristics of the people surveyed, the University of Münster reported on the results. The study also included data from Switzerland.
Data from corona research project
The study, carried out from the end of 2021 to the summer of 2022, made it possible to examine daily mood trajectories during the weeks of the outbreak of war. "Normally, it is not possible to study such drastic events in a precise time window with a simultaneous geographical breadth," said Professor Back. The data is unique. They come from the "Coping with Corona" project, which surveyed the well-being of people worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic.
The result showed that people in Europe had a significantly lower level of well-being compared to the rest of the world. There was no direct correlation between being strongly affected and active solidarity such as willingness to donate or participate in demonstrations. When the war in Ukraine was particularly present in the social media, the respondents' mental state was worse on average.
No data from Ukraine or Russia
"In addition to the obvious consequences of war, such as flight or interrupted supply chains, there is a less obvious dimension: the impact of daily news and images on the psyche," said Scharbert according to the press release.
The authors of the study point out that people in Ukraine and Russia are probably under much greater psychological stress - although no data is available for these countries.
©Keystone/SDA
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