Eduard Vieta
Director of the Institute of Neurosciences at Hospital Clínic, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Barcelona and researcher at IDIBAPS and CIBERSAM
The article is of some interest, although the results are not particularly novel. It is a study based on a cohort of Swedish university students. The study is methodologically sound and indicates that those students who report high levels of procrastination (i.e., those who do not practice "don't procrastinate what you can do today") end up, over time, reporting greater mental health problems in the sphere of depression, anxiety, and somatization.
The results are not surprising and, as a limitation, the study is based only on self-reported symptoms, which favours the identification of internalising, but not externalising, symptoms and behaviours. The results suggest that the identification of procrastination behaviours could allow for the early identification of some mental health problems. This is the same as with insomnia, for example, which is known to be a predictor of present and future poor mental health, albeit somewhat unspecific.