Associations of social isolation with anxiety and depression during the early COVID-19 Pandemic: a survey of older adults in London, UK
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing a profound negative impact on the health and wellbeing of societies and individuals, worldwide. One concern is the effect of social isolation as a result of social distancing on the mental health of vulnerable populations, including older people.Within six weeks of lockdown, we initiated the CHARIOT COVID-19 Rapid Response Study, a bespoke survey of cognitively healthy older people living in London,to investigate the impact of COVID-19 and associated social isolation on mental and physical wellbeing. The sample was drawn from CHARIOT, a register of people over 50 who have consented to be contacted for ageing related research. A total of 327,127 men and women (mean age=70.7 [SD=7.4]) participated in the baseline survey, May-July 2020. Participants were asked about changes to the 14 components of the Hospital Anxiety Depression scale (HADS) after lockdown was introduced in the UK,on 23rd March. A total of 12.8% of participants reported feeling worse on the depression components of HADS (7.8% men and 17.3% women) and 3612.3% reported feeling worse on the anxiety components (7.8% men and 16.5% women). Fewer participants reported feeling improved (1.5% for depression and 4.9% for anxiety). Women, younger participants, those single/widowed/divorced, reporting poor sleep, feelings of loneliness and who reported living alone were more likely to indicate feeling worse on both the depression and/or anxiety components of the HADS. There was a significant negative association between subjective loneliness and worsened components of both depression (OR 17.24, 95% CI 13.20, 22.50) and anxiety (OR 10.85, 95% CI 8.39, 14.03). Results may inform targeted interventions and help guide policy recommendations in reducing the effects of social isolation related to the pandemic, and beyond, on the mental health of older people.
Date Issued
2020-09
Date Acceptance
2020-08-31
Citation
Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2020, 11, pp.1-12
ISSN
1664-0640
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Start Page
1
End Page
12
Journal / Book Title
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Volume
11
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Robb, de Jager, Ahmadi-Abhari, Giannakopoulou, Udeh-Momoh, McKeand, Price, Car, Majeed, Ward and Middleton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
License URL
Sponsor
National Institute for Health Research
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust: Research Capability Funding (RCF)
Identifier
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.591120/full
Grant Number
NF-SI-0617-10116
RDF04
Subjects
1103 Clinical Sciences
1117 Public Health and Health Services
1701 Psychology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
591120
Date Publish Online
2020-09-17