There has long been concern about the effect of social isolation and loneliness on mental health. These fears have intensified as we approach a full year of COVID-19 related social distancing regulations which have fundamentally changed the social lives of many people globally. It has been a unique period of enforced isolation from which many may have suffered, but we have also turned to new technologies and new ways of keeping in contact with others to cushion the effect of this isolation.

In our recent study we wanted to test whether both the quality and quantity of social relationships during the first UK lockdown affected mental health. We also aimed to examine whether keeping in contact with others virtually by phone and video calls had helped, and whether particular groups had suffered from the effects of the disruption to our relationships.

We used the information gathered by the Covid-19 Social Study for which over 70,000 UK adults completed weekly questionnaires between March and August 2020 – many continue to reply to these on a now monthly basis. These questionnaires asked about their changing daily lives, including social, financial, emotional and health circumstances.

We found that people who reported having good quality supportive relationships with others had a hugely reduced risk of reporting major symptoms of depression. The most supported had 85% lower chance of depression than the least supported, even taking into account the amount of time those different groups actually spent with people. This suggests that the quality of relationships may make a huge difference. The amount of time spent in social contact with others was important, but less so. Having daily face-to-face contact between March and August 2020 gave a 29% lower depression risk than those who had no face-to-face contact. Phone and video calls also seemed to help, with daily virtual conversations giving a 18% lower depression risk, even in the absence of face-to-face interaction. Finally, when we checked if particular groups were at high risk, we found that those who had previously been more socially active and those with a greater tendency towards empathy were the most hard-hit by social isolation.

Our findings reinforce the mental health benefits of frequent and good quality social contact with others. This adds to the evidence that there are physical health benefits and even lower dementia risk from spending time with others. We are currently facing at least several more months of social restrictions and adherence to these this is clearly essential to save lives and bring an end to the pandemic. But there may be things we can do to help our and others’ mental health over the coming months. Our study suggests that the quality of our relationships may matter more than the quantity, so building supportive relationships may be possible despite the need to keep physical distance. Phone calls and even Zoom quizzes may help to maintain mental health in the absence of spending time face-to-face with others. These are measures we can take now to reduce the risk of a double pandemic arising from social isolation, and are lessons we can take forward to the post-COVID society.

The article ‘Social relationships and depression during the COVID-19 lockdown: longitudinal analysis of the COVID-19 Social Study‘, by Andrew Sommerlad et al., published in the journal Psychological Medicine, is available Open Access.