Are older adults also at higher psychological risk from COVID-19?

Abstract

Objective

Given the lack of information on the psychological impact of COVID-19 on people aged ≥60, we aimed to describe their psychological responses to this pandemic and lockdown situation and compare them with those under 60 years of age.

Methods

Secondary analysis of a larger online cross-sectional study designed to determine the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown across Spain. We analyzed a total of 1690 respondents aged ≥60 years and compared them with 13,363 respondents under 60 years of age. We employed the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale and the Impact of Event Scale to evaluate psychological responses.

Results

In all, 52.6% of women and 34.3% of men were found to be probable cases of any emotional distress (p < 0.001). In both sexes, the most common psychological response was avoidance behavior (34.7% and 23.8%, respectively), followed by depression (28.5 and 14.2%). Older women and men were considered probable cases of any emotional distress less often than younger ones (women: 52.6% vs. 72.3%, p < 0.001; men: 34.3% vs. 50.6%, p < 0.001). Finally, the results of the binary logistic regression showed that only depressive and stress responses are psychological factors associated with age group [age ≥ 60 years, O.R. = 0.617 (95% CI = 0.501 − 0.759) and 0.437 (95% CI = 0.334 − 0.573), respectively].

Conclusion

Contrary to our hypothesis and despite the high percentage of emotional distress we found in older adults, especially women, they are actually at lower risk of developing depressive and stress consequences from COVID-19 and lockdown than those under 60 years of age. That said, we believe our results highlight the need for expert guidance in this age group, especially older women living alone.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• older adults
• psychological impact
• avoidant behavior
• depression

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sharon Grevet for her English assistance.

Disclosure statement

Paz Garcia-Portilla has been a consultant to and/or has received honoraria/grants from Angelini, Alianza Otsuka-Lundbeck, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Otsuka, Pfizer, and SAGE Therapeutics.

The rest of the authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Government of the Principality of Asturias PCTI-2018-2022 IDI/2018/235, the CIBERSAM and Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER).