A longitudinal examination of the protective effect of resilience against anxiety among older adults with high COVID-related worry

ABSTRACT

This longitudinal study of community dwelling older adults (N = 453) examined consequences of COVID-related worries on changes in anxiety symptoms before relative to during the pandemic. We further evaluated if pre-COVID psychological resilience (PR) buffered the impact of COVID-related worry. Pre-COVID data were collected in September 2018. COVID-related worry and COVID anxiety symptoms were collected in October 2020 (Wave 2). Controlling for pre-COVID anxiety symptoms, we examined if COVID-related worries (e.g. I’m worried that I might die from COVID-19) were associated with increased anxiety symptoms, and whether pre-COVID PR moderated the association between COVID-related worries and prospective increases in anxiety symptoms. COVID-related worries were associated with increased anxiety symptoms (β = 0.005, p < .01), whereas pre-COVID PR was associated with a decrease in anxiety symptoms (β = −0.029, p < .05). PR moderated the association; COVID-related worries were associated with greater increases in anxiety symptoms among those with low pre-COVID PR (Model η² = 0.35). Thus, the extent to which COVID-related worries influenced psychological health was dependent on pre-COVID levels of PR. We conclude the combined vulnerabilities of low pre-COVID PR and high COVID-related worries significantly increased the psychological consequences of COVID-19 for our sample of older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• anxiety
• worry
• resilience
• older adults

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. As described in Jean Francois et al. (2022), this scale included additional items that were not included in the current study assessing how each worry/concern influenced the participant’s functioning.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported, in part, by The National Institute of Health Integrated Clinical Neuroscience Training for Translational Research Grant (5T32 MH093311-09), and The Institute for Successful Longevity Planning Grant (000473-ISL).