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A Study of the Association between the Stringency of Covid-19 Government Measures and Depression in Older Adults across Europe and Israel.

ABSTRACT: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is having major adverse consequences for the mental health of individuals worldwide. Alongside the direct impact of the virus on individuals, government responses to tackling its spread, such as quarantine, lockdown, and physical distancing measures, have been found to have a profound impact on mental health. This is manifested in an increased prevalence of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. As older adults are more vulnerable and severely affected by the pandemic, they may be at increased psychological risk when seeking to protect themselves from COVID-19. Methods: Our study aims to quantify the association between the stringency of measures and increased feelings of sadness/depression in a sample of 31,819 Europeans and Israelis aged 65 and above. We hypothesize that more stringent measures make it more likely that individuals will report increased feelings of sadness or depression. Conclusions: We found that more stringent measures across countries in Europe and Israel affect the mental health of older individuals. The prevalence of increased feelings of sadness/depression was higher in Southern European countries, where the measures were more stringent. We therefore recommend paying particular attention to the possible effects of pandemic control measures on the mental health of older people.

SUBMITTER: Voss G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8345712 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:RationaleDetermining who is particularly vulnerable to mental health deterioration during the COVID-19 pandemic is essential when designing and targeting interventions to mitigate the adverse psychological impacts of the outbreak. Older people have appeared to be less exposed to mental health deterioration compared with younger individuals, but most exposed to the risk of severe illness and death from the virus, as well as less equipped to use technologies for coping with lockdown measures.ObjectiveAmongst the old population, we aim at determining how depressive symptoms have changed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and identifying individual risk factors associated with changes in reporting depression. We are particularly interested in exploring the role of pre-existing mental health problems and evaluating gender differences.MethodData come from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, in particular from the first COVID-19 survey administered in summer 2020. Logistic models are estimated and Average Marginal Effects computed to take the degree of individual unobserved heterogeneity into account comparing point estimates across samples. Multiple Imputation (implemented through Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations) is used to replace missing data. Statistical power of the effect sizes is estimated by a simulation approach.ResultsPre-existing mental health problems, a diagnosis of affective/emotional disorders, a recent diagnosis of a major illness, and (only for men) job loss during the first wave of the outbreak are the most important risk factors. Statistical differences between genders emerge, with women experiencing higher levels of depression and greater worsening of mental health than men.ConclusionsTo identify people at greater risk of depression deterioration during an outbreak it is very important to consider their pre-existing mental and general health, distinguishing severity level. On population level, it is also crucial to evaluate depression disorders separately by gender.

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A Study of the Association between the Stringency of Covid-19 Government Measures and Depression in Older Adults across Europe and Israel.

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