SUSU scientists took part in a major research study on the spread of somatic stress in Russia. The work is based on a survey among10205 people conducted during the pandemic. The results obtained show that young Russians are more susceptible to somatic and psychological stress than their peers in Europe.
“During the COVID-19 epidemic, people were under a colossal load: both on the body and on the psyche. Indeed, cases of stroke among people aged 25 to 35 years have become more frequent,” explains Maksim Lapshin, SUSU research fellow. “Chelyabinsk scientists, together with a team of researchers from other regions of Russia, came to a conclusion that only 16.8% of respondents had no side effects due to COVID. The rest experienced some deviations from the norm. The first group with a high somatic load profile included 16% of participants who typically experienced severe stomach or intestinal problems, back, arm, leg or joints pain, headaches, fatigue or loss of energy, sleep problems combined with even more pronounced dizziness and extremely severe chest pain or shortness of breath. The second group, 37% of the survey participants, had moderate complaints about the gastrointestinal tract, joints, headaches, fatigue, sleep problems with a slightly smaller number of mentions of dizziness, chest pain or shortness of breath. This is the profile of medium somatic load. The largest latent profile includes 47% of participants and can be marked as “low somatic load”.”
The survey was conducted in 33 regions of Russia. The gender, age, level of education of the participants, as well as their history of COVID-19, self-assessment of health, fear of infection and some other characteristics were taken into account. Scientists wanted to understand to what extent the population, and students in particular, are susceptible to somatic stress and psychological deviations.
“We determined that Russian students are more sufficient to somatic and psychological deviations than French and German students,” says Associate Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Higher School of Economics Alena Zolotareva. “This is also confirmed by other pandemic studies. Moreover, females turned out to be more unstable in a stressful situation. They more often reported symptoms of anxiety, avoidance, and depression. A strong accompanying factor according to the results of the study was self-assessment of health, that is, somatic symptoms worsened when a person doubted their health.”
Now it is important to understand how young people and other groups of the population can cope with stress caused by various events. There are few studies on this topic in Russia, but the data obtained during the survey, together with medical records, laboratory tests, and doctor assessments, can serve as a basis for developing recommendations by psychologists.