The impact of the social isolation in elderly Brazilian mental health (anxiety and depression) during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The impact of social isolation in the pandemic context on elderly Brazilian mental health is little known, especially about the occurrence of depressive symptoms. In this study, we evaluated elderly people undergoing social isolation in order to identify factors associated with depression and which of these are more important to characterize elderly Brazilians with depression. In a cross-sectional, exploratory, and analytical study of a quantitative nature, the mental profile of elderly individuals subjected to social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic period was used. A total of 450 participants was divided into normal and depressive groups, and a form covering sociodemographic data, opinions/perceptions about the pandemic, and a Reduced Geriatric Depression Scale was used to assess participants' mental health. To assess the statistical significance between the variables, chi-square test was applied, considering the p-value <0.05. The effect size was analyzed to identify the magnitude of the difference between groups. To identify the most important characteristics to define the groups Multilayer Perceptron algorithm were applied. We found that elderly people with a depressive profile are (in Multilayer Perceptron rank order) (1) showing signs of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) of low education, (3) being divorced, (4) having more than one mental disorder, (5) reading, watching, or listening to information about COVID-19, and (6) being previously diagnosed with depression. In conclusion, elderly Brazilians in social isolation tend to develop depressive disorders during quarantine. Thus, we can consider that the pandemic requires effective and safe gerontological care and monitoring, especially with regard to mental health.

The Effect of Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Physical Activity on Depressive Symptoms of Older Adults during COVID-19: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

“…The results revealed that the impact of social isolation on depressive symptoms is directly and indirectly mediated by loneliness in older adults. This is in line with previous studies that have explored the effects of social isolation as well as loneliness on depression in older adults [30][31][32][33][34][35]. While social isolation and loneliness are considered different from each other [11,36], they show significant relationships with each other and depression in older adults [37,38].…”

COVID-19-related burnout reduces COVID-19 vaccination intention in cardiac patients: a cross-sectional study in Greece

“…depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia. [37][38][39][40][41][42] There is a need for greater focus on patients' mental health issues, such as COVID-19-related burnout, fear, depression, anxiety, etc. Also, our results showed that age was associated with COVID-19 vaccination intention in cardiac patients as we expected.…”