Just wondering: is the working hypothesis in the UK that people who are finding themselves feeling more mentally 'unwell' will be people developing psychiatric illnesses; people experiencing life stresses; people finding it harder to cope with existing problems or something else?

I ask because I assume that we aren't blithely assuming that the pandemic will lead to what is just a simple increase in demand for services arranged as they have been. I don't think it's useful to talk about meblntal distress as if it were traffic on congested roads

My guess (based on nowt as I'm not a researcher) is that we'll see people having a resurgence of existing problems they were getting by with previously, people who are extremely tired and stressed, people with 'new' challenges and people grieving, lonely and desperate

I have no idea who is and isn't doing what help seeking for which challenges and where they are seeking it for a feeling of 'not feeling ok' and distressed. Service use doesn't equal level of distress present on a population, but neither does a 'do you feel better/worse' survey

I'm always a bit wary of 'just so' stories around mental heath. It feels like 'of course people will be experience more mental heath difficulties due to the pandemic' but that doesn't really tell us much beyond 'we think pandemics are stressful'.

The one gap in so much discussion around responses to the pandemic is anything that could be regarded as 'pre-existing'. Pre-existing conditions, pre-existing stresses, pre-existing poverty, pre-existing inequality. Discussion like to talk about category change, not severity