Social support and mental well-being among people with and without chronic illness during the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from the longitudinal UCL covid survey

An immediate research priority recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic is well-being among some of our most vulnerable—people with chronic illness. We studied how mental health changed among people with and without chronic illness throughout the pandemic and the mediating role of social support. We used the 3-waves of COVID-19 survey within the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, age 19, N = 5522) and MCS Parent (MCSP, age > > 19, N = 7479) samples, with additional pre-pandemic measures of some outcomes and exposure. Using Structural Equation Panel Models with Full Information Maximum Likelihood estimation to address missing data, we studied differences between respondents with a chronic illness and without, regarding depressive symptoms and mental well-being, with social provision, social support, and loneliness as potential mediators. Mental well-being (SWEMWBS) and psychological distress (Kessler-6) worsened significantly during the pandemic relative to baseline for people with and without chronic illness, while the latter group had substantially better well-being at all waves and the baseline regarding both outcomes. When the lockdown was lifted during wave-2, mental well-being temporarily rebounded, and distress waned among people without chronic illness but continued to worsen among people with chronic illness. Social support partially mediated the link between chronic illness and mental well-being. The large mental well-being gap between people with and without chronic illness persisted during the pandemic. However, social support and provision can partially narrow this gap, hence should be employed in future pandemic management.