Mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: the importance of social support in midlife women

Abstract

Objective

This study aimed to examine sex differences in factors associated with mood and anxiety in midlife men and women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

During a remote visit, 312 adults aged 40–60 years (167 female; 23.6% perimenopausal) from the Human Connectome Project in Aging completed PROMIS measures of depression, anxiety and anger/irritability; perceived stress; and questions about social support, financial stress and menopause stage. Multivariate linear regression models assessed sex differences in mental health and the association of social support, financial stress and menopause stage with mental health.

Results

Anxiety was higher in women than in men (b = 2.39, p = 0.02). For women only, decreased social support was associated with increased anxiety (b = −2.26, p = 0.002), anger/irritability (b = −1.89, p = 0.02) and stress (b = −1.67, p = 0.002). For women only, not having close family was associated with increased depressive symptoms (b = −6.60, p = 0.01) and stress (b = −7.03, p < 0.001). For both sexes, having children was associated with lower depressive symptoms (b = −3.08, p = 0.002), anxiety (b = −1.93, p = 0.07), anger/irritability (b = −2.73, p = 0.02) and stress (b = −1.44, p = 0.07). Menopause stage was unrelated to mental health.

Conclusion

Social support, but not financial stress, influenced mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic at midlife, particularly for women.

Keywords:

• Midlife
• mental health
• social support
• COVID-19
• menopause

Disclosure statement

P.M.M. has received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory board of Astellas, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson; has received compensation from AbbVie and Pfizer for consulting; serves as a member of the scientific advisory board and has/had equity in Alloy, Estrigenix and MidiHealth; and has received speaking fees and travel support from Mithra. All her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The remaining authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The HCP-Aging 2.0 Release data including certain variables used in this manuscript come from doi:10.15154/1520707. For further information on data accessibility, please contact the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health [grant U01AG052564], [grant U01AG052564-S1]; 14 NIH Institutes and Centers that support the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research; McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience at Washington University; Office of the Provost at Washington University; University of Minnesota Medical School.