Examining population-level changes in mental health, wellbeing, and social behaviour during unprecedent times: an analysis of the longitudinal COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study data (2020-2023) at Ulster University

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Prof Jamie Murphy, Dr Sarah Butter, Prof Mark Shevlin, Dr Orla McBride No more applications being accepted Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Coleraine United Kingdom Psychology

About the Project

Commencing in March 2020, the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study is the longest running online survey to collect data to monitor and assess the psychological, social, economic, and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The C19PRC study is on-going, with additional data collection points taking place in late 2022 and early 2023. The C19PRC Study is unrivalled with respect to the broad and deep coverage of the protective and risk factors of public mental health and wellbeing. The C19PRC Study is a rich and detailed data resource that provides a most convenient and valuable foundation from which to study the social, political, and health status of European adults during an unprecedent time of change as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the cost-of-living crisis.

The successful candidate will be supported by the C19PRC Study investigating team to develop a coherent PhD project in the area of public mental health. Detailed training and mentorship in survey methodology, dataset management, and advanced quantitative data analysis will be provided to enable the candidate to work with this complex survey data resource.

The successful candidate will also be trained in working with non-academic partners to support the translation of research findings from the C19PRC Study into actionable, real-world research impact to understand how human behaviour has changed during recent (and on-going) unprecedent social and economic times.

The successful candidate will be involved in drafting research findings from the C19PRC Study for submission to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. The C19PRC Study team are strongly committed to Open Science practices, and the candidate will receive training in developing these skills.

Please note: Applications from those holding or expecting to hold a 2:1 Honours Degree in Psychology are strongly encouraged to apply. Applications for more than one PhD studentship are welcome, however if you apply for more than one PhD project within Psychology, your first application on the system will be deemed your first-choice preference and further applications will be ordered based on the sequential time of submission. If you are successfully shortlisted, you will be interviewed only on your first-choice application and ranked accordingly. Those ranked highest will be offered a PhD studentship. In the situation where you are ranked highly and your first-choice project is already allocated to someone who was ranked higher than you, you may be offered your 2nd or 3rd choice project depending on the availability of this project.

References

Recommended reading:
McBride, O., Butter, S., Hartman, T. K., Murphy, J., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., Gibson-Miller, J., Levita, L., Mason, L., Martinez, A. P., McKay, R., Lloyd, A., Stocks, T. V. A., Bennett, J., Vallières, F., Karatzias, T., Valiente, C., Vazquez, C., Contreras, A., Bertamini, M., Panzeri, A., Bruno, G., & Bentall, R. P. (2022). Sharing Data to Better Understand One of the World’s Most Significant Shared Experiences: Data Resource Profile of the Longitudinal Covid-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19prc) Study. International Journal of Population Data Science, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v5i4.1704
Shevlin, M., McBride, O., Murphy, J., Gibson-Miller, J., Hartman, T. K., Levita, L., Mason, L., Martinez, A. P., McKay, R., Stocks, T. V. A., Bennett, K. M., Hyland, P., Karatzias, T., & Bentall., R. P. (2020). Anxiety, depression, traumatic stress and COVID-19 related anxiety in the UK general population during the COVID-19 pandemic. BJPsych Open, 6(6), e125. http://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2020.109
Shevlin, M., Butter, S., McBride, O., Murphy, J., Gibson-Miller, J., Hartman, T. K., Levita, L., Mason, L., Martinez, A. P., McKay, R., Stocks, T. V. A., Bennett, K., Hyland, P., Vallières, F., & Bentall, R. P. (2021). Psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are heterogeneous but have stabilised over time: One year longitudinal follow-up of the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study. Psychological Medicine. Advanced online publication. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721004025
Murphy, J., Vallières, F., Bentall, R. P., Shevlin, M., McBride, O., Hartman, T. K., McKay, R., Bennett, K., Mason, L., Gibson-Miller, J., Levita, L., Martinez, A. P., Stocks, T. V. A., Karatzias, T., & Hyland, P. (2021). Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Nature Communications, 12, 29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20226-9
Zavlis, O., Butter, S., Bennett, K., Hartman, T. K., Hyland, P., Mason, L., McBride, O., Murphy, J., Gibson-Miller, J., Levita, L., Martinez, A. P., Shevlin, M., Stocks, T. V. A., Vallières, F., & Bentall, R. P. (2021). How does the COVID-19 pandemic impact on population mental health? A network analysis of COVID influences on depression, anxiety and traumatic stress in the UK population. Psychological Medicine. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721000635
Butter, S., Murphy, J., Hyland, P., McBride, O., Shevlin, M., Hartman, T. K., Bennett, K., Gibson-Miller, J., Levita, L., Martinez, A. P., Mason, L., McKay, R., Stocks, T. V. A., Vallières, F., & Bentall, R. P. (2022). Modelling the complexity of pandemic-related lifestyle quality change and mental health: An analysis of a nationally representative UK general population sample. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 57, 1247-1260. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-021-02210-w
Shevlin, M., Butter, S., McBride, O., Murphy, J., Gibson-Miller, J., Hartman, T. K., Levita, L., Mason, L., Martinez, A. P., McKay, R., Stocks, T. V. A., Bennett, K., Hyland, P., Vallières, F., Valiente, C., Vazquez, C., Contreras, A., Peinado, V., Trucharte, A., Bertamini, M., Panzeri, A., Bruno, G., Granziol, U., Mignemi, G., Spoto, A., Vidotto, G., & Bentall., R. P. (2022). Measurement invariance of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale across four European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Psychiatry, 22, 154. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-03787-5