Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: May 12, 2022
Date Accepted: Jul 27, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Social support, social media and life satisfaction with BD during the COVID-19 Pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
Reliable and consistent social support are associated with the psychological well-being of those with severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder (BD). Yet the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social distancing measures (e.g., shelter-in-place) have reduced access to regular social support. Concomitantly, use of social media during the pandemic has increased (i.e., social, non-social, passive social media usage).
Objective:
We set out to identify associations between BD symptoms, social support and social media use (SMU) during the pandemic.
Methods:
Using micro-targeted Facebook advertising, we recruited 102 adults with BD, most lived in North America (Canada = 45, USA = 15), Western Europe (e.g., UK=18, Ireland=10), South Africa (4) and Oceania (e.g., Australia=4, New Zealand=3). On average, participants were 53.96 years of age (SD = 13.22, range 20-77 years); they completed questionnaires online 32 months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
Results:
Consistent with previous research, symptoms of hypo/mania and depression are correlated; and symptoms of depression predict loneliness, social support and life satisfaction. Social support predicts social Facebook usage whereas passive Facebook use predicts life satisfaction. Symptoms of depression emerged as indirect predictors of SMU via social support.
Conclusions:
Most participants (60.8%) reported accessing social media several times a day during the pandemic, and 36% reported using social media more often since the emergence of COVID-19. Our findings suggest bidirectional associations between social media use and well-being with BD. Longitudinal data collection is required to identify associations between BD symptoms, social media use and well-being over time.
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