Do reductions of daily activities mediate the relationship between COVID-19 restrictions and mental ill-health among older persons in Europe?

Abstract

Objective

Previous research has shown that daily activities are crucial for mental health among older people, and that such activities declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. While previous studies have confirmed a link between stringent restrictions and an increase in mental ill-health, the role of daily activities as a mediator in this relationship remains underexplored. We analyzed whether reductions in daily activities mediated the impact of these COVID-19 restrictions on mental ill-health during the pandemic’s initial phase.

Methods

We used data from Wave 8 SHARE Corona Survey covering 41,409 respondents from 25 European countries and Israel as well as data on COVID-19 restrictions from the Oxford Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT). Multilevel regression and multilevel-mediation analysis were used to examine the relationships between restrictions, daily activities and mental ill-health.

Results

Reductions in walking and shopping showed a notably stronger association with increases in mental ill-health compared to social activities. Furthermore, declines in walking could account for about a quarter of the relationship between restrictions and increased mental ill-health, but the mediating effects of the other activates were negligible.

Conclusions

The study highlights the essential role of maintaining daily activities, particularly walking, to mitigate the negative psychological effects of pandemic-related restrictions among older populations in Europe.

Keywords:

• Mental health
• restrictions
• COVID-19
• ageing
• Europe
• SHARE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

The ethical review board in Sweden has approved SHARE in general (Dnr 2012/373-31) and the specific COVID-19 Project (Dnr 2021-03581), which this study is part of.

Informed consent

Data used in our article involved human subjects who consented to participate in SHARE, see www.share-project.org

Data availability statement

This paper uses data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): Wave 8, release version 8.0.0, DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w8.800 and Wave 8 COVID-19 Survey 1, release version 8.0.0 DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w8ca.800, https://share-eric.eu/data/.

Notes

1 In our literature review, we do not draw a distinct line between subjective well-being and mental health, as these two constructs exhibit considerable overlap. This is particularly relevant in our study, as our operationalization of mental ill-health focuses on symptoms of depression and anxiety, which are frequently incorporated into measures of the affective component of subjective well-being.

2 For more information on sampling, monitoring and managing of fieldwork during the SHARE Corona Survey, see Bergmann& Börsch-Supan (2021) and Scherpenzeel et al. (2020).

Additional information

Funding

Research in this article is a part of the H2020 SHARE-COVID project (Grant agreement No. 101015924).