Social networks and mental health change in older adults after the Covid-19 outbreak

Can remote social contact replace in‐person contact to protect mental health among older adults?

“…In a nationally representative sample of older adults, our data converge with prior research showing that in-person contact cannot be replaced by remote modes of contact in maintaining mental health. 1,9,10 Individuals experienced loneliness, depression, and reductions in happiness despite increases in remote contact. However, our data also showed low rates of uptake of three different remote modes of contact during the pandemic.…”

Do government responses impact the relationship between age, gender and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic? A comparison across 27 European countries

“…Has that been more so, less so or about the same as before the outbreak of Corona?”. Following previous work ( Bergmann and Wagner, 2021 ; Litwin and Levinsky, 2021 ), we dichotomized the responses to take the value of 0 if respondents did not experience more anxiety, depression, insomnia, or loneliness (No/never, Less so and About the same), and 1 if respondents did experience more (More so). We then summed responses across all four indicators to obtain a measure of overall psychological distress ranging from 0 to 4.…”

Hitting Close to Home: The Effect of COVID-19 Illness in the Social Environment on Psychological Burden in Older Adults

“…In addition, experience of COVID-19-related ageism ( Skoog, 2020 ), perception of increased risk of COVID-19 illness ( Sigurvinsdottir et al, 2020 ), fear due to the virus ( Warren et al, 2021 ), experience of COVID-19 infection ( Sigurvinsdottir et al, 2020 ; Silver, 2020 ), and decrease in physical activity ( Creese et al, 2020 ) have been found to adversely impact mental health. This impact is moderated by the psychological makeup of individual encompassing personality traits ( Wei, 2020 ), emotion regulation ability ( Prout et al, 2020 ), coping behaviors ( Minahan et al, 2021 ), anxiety sensitivity ( Warren et al, 2021 ), and social resources ( Litwin and Levinsky, 2021 ).…”