Understanding Psychological Distress and Protective Factors Amongst Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives: This study examined the emotional distress and loneliness during COVID-19 and the roles of resiliency and activities. Design: A cross-sectional national survey. Setting: Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) and Prolific Research Platforms. Participants: Five hundred and one U.S. dwelling English-speaking adults 60 years old and older. Measurements: Participants completed an online survey with the PHQ-9; GAD-7; Short Health Anxiety Inventory; 3-item UCLA Loneliness scale; PROMIS measures of global health, instrumental, and emotional support; 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale; and COVID-19 needs assessment. Results: Across the sample 13% reported moderate depressive symptoms, 9% reported moderate anxiety symptoms, and 26% endorsed being lonely. The emotionally distressed group endorsed more loneliness, lower resiliency, less physical exercise, and worse physical health. The low Socio-Economic Status group endorsed less loneliness, less likely to engage in physical exercise and worse physical health. The lonely group endorsed less resilience, less physical exercise, and worse physical health. A multiple logistic regression found that resilience, socioeconomic status, and physical health were significant predictors of loneliness, whereas global health was the best predictor of emotional distress. Conclusions: Even after prolonged social distancing, older adults in this study did not report greater psychological distress compared to earlier studies of older adults during COVID-19. Older adults with lower SES, worse physical health, and less resiliency, were more likely to report more loneliness. It is this group that should be the focus of intervention.

Automated summary

This study examined emotional distress and loneliness in older adults during COVID-19, finding that emotionally distressed individuals were more likely to feel lonely with lower resilience and worse physical health, while lonely individuals had lower resilience and worse physical health. Resilience, socioeconomic status, and physical health were significant predictors of loneliness, while global health was the best predictor of emotional distress. Older adults with lower SES, worse physical health, and less resilience were more likely to report loneliness.