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.
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.