Women’s mental health vulnerability, already a concern before the COVID-19 pandemic, has been exacerbated due to social isolation and restrictions on daily activities. This paper aims to follow a cohort of women from pre - to during the pandemic to determine the change in their mental health using the PHQ-2 scale (a mental health screening tool). Additionally, we investigate whether women with depressive symptoms before the pandemic suffered similarly to those without while controlling for pandemic-related factors. Primarily, we use the Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey dataset and apply pooled ordered logit and fixed effects ordered logit models. We find that the value of the PHQ-2 scale significantly increased during the first period of the pandemic and then eased over time. Interestingly, the behaviour of the individual scale items differed over time. This result questions the internal reliability of the scale during the pandemic and the importance of analysing the scale items individually. Furthermore, being depressed before the pandemic increases the probability of ‘depressive feelings’ and does not matter for ‘anhedonia’. Other factors increasing the probability of mental health disorders are taking care of children for 13–24 h a day and living with a person who has gone hungry. In contrast, wearing a mask and living in a grant-receiving household decreases the probability. These findings inform future researchers of the unexpected behaviour of scales and policymakers of the vulnerability of women’s mental health during unprecedented times, given their vital role in increasing the well-being of future generations.

女性的心理健康脆弱性在 COVID-19 大流行之前就已成为一个令人担忧的问题，但由于社会隔离和日常活动的限制，这一问题进一步加剧。本文旨在跟踪一群女性从大流行前到大流行期间的情况，使用 PHQ-2 量表（一种心理健康筛查工具）来确定她们心理健康的变化。此外，我们还调查了在控制大流行相关因素的情况下，在大流行之前有抑郁症状的女性是否遭受与没有抑郁症状的女性类似的痛苦。我们主要使用冠状病毒快速移动调查数据集，并应用汇总有序 Logit 模型和固定效应有序 Logit 模型。我们发现 PHQ-2 量表的价值在大流行的第一阶段显着增加，然后随着时间的推移而下降。有趣的是，各个规模项目的行为随着时间的推移而有所不同。这一结果质疑了大流行期间量表的内部可靠性以及单独分析量表项目的重要性。此外，在大流行之前感到抑郁会增加“抑郁情绪”的可能性，而对“快感缺失”并不重要。其他增加精神健康障碍可能性的因素包括每天照顾孩子 13-24 公顷以及与挨饿的人住在一起。相比之下，戴口罩并居住在接受资助的家庭中会降低这种可能性。这些发现让未来的研究人员了解在前所未有的时期妇女心理健康脆弱性的规模和政策制定者的意外行为，因为她们在增加子孙后代的福祉方面发挥着至关重要的作用。