Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Positive Mental Health During Times of COVID‐19 and War in Ukraine: A Four‐Wave Longitudinal Study in Lithuania and Germany

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war are seen as global crises, possibly affecting mental health worldwide. Longitudinal research seeking to understand these effects is still scarce. The current study aimed to examine mental health trajectories and links between stress, anxiety, depression, and positive mental health (PMH) over time from pre-pandemics to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The four-measurement points study was conducted on a sample of young adults from Lithuania and Germany (N = 432; 76.4% female; M_age (SD_age) = 22.98 (6.35) at T1). The latent change analysis was used to reveal the change trajectories, the latent class change analyses to indicate the patterns of change, and the cross-lagged panel analysis was used to examine how mental health indicators predict one another over time. On average, no changes were observed in mental health indicators over the study period. Nevertheless, latent class analysis revealed two distinct trajectories: 76.4% of participants belonged to the low-symptom group, where depression (d = -0.61), anxiety (d = -0.19), and stress (d = -0.26) decreased over time, while 23.6% belonged to the high-symptom group, where depression (d = 2.32), anxiety (d = 0.79), and stress increased (d = 1.09) substantially, and positive mental health (PMH) decreased (d = 0.82). Moreover, better PMH before the pandemic and during the 2nd COVID-19 outbreak predicted lower stress a year after; higher anxiety before the pandemic and during the release of COVID-19 restrictions predicted higher stress a year after. Crisis interventions should target anxiety and positive mental health to help young adults cope with stress in times of change, threat, and unpredictability.