Social isolation transitions and psychological distress among older adults in rural China: A longitudinal study before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Loneliness, ageism, and mental health: The buffering role of resilience in seniors

“…However, our findings showed particularly high levels of PD, which we argue that, at least to some extent, this may be due to the fact that the data collection was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic – including two separate lockdowns and several restrictions- since studies developed during this period in other countries also showed levels of PD closer to those found in this study (e.g., Hayashi et al, 2022 ). However, the literature is unequivocal in that it indicates that the occurrence of PD has been a worrying phenomenon in recent years in the senior population, independently of the pandemic context ( Kikuchi et al, 2013 ; Li et al, 2021 ).…”

Social Contact, Social Participation, and Emotional Well-Being Among Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Roles of Giving and Receiving Social Support

“…Being socially connected was argued to be related to better health because social integration is linked to stress reduction and reducing the negative effects of stress, while being socially disconnected is posited to be detrimental to older adults’ health outcomes. For example, research shows that older adults who are socially isolated reported higher rates of psychological distress compared to their counterparts who had better social connections (Li et al, 2022). Berkman and colleagues (2000) proposed that individuals’ social network characteristics include, but are not limited to, frequency of face-to-face social contact, frequency of nonvisual social contact, and frequency of organizational participation (such as volunteering and religious service attendance).…”

Using leisure crafting to reduce emotional exhaustion at home during the COVID‐19 pandemic through better sleep and not thinking about the pandemic

“…Although social isolation at home has proven effective in reducing virus transmission (World Health Organization, 2019), it is also chronically detrimental to individuals' psychological health (Banerjee & Rai, 2020; Brasher et al., 2010; Tull, Edmonds, Scamaldo et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2020). Indeed, recent studies conducted in the Chinese context have discovered that long social isolation has significantly increased individuals' psychological distress (e.g., Li, Yan, Yang et al., 2022). Other studies have also found similar results in other countries (e.g., Shah, Memon, Qureshi et al., 2022).…”