Study Details Pandemic’s Depressive Effects in Older Adults

A recent study of more than 20,000 older adults found that about 1 in 8 of them developed depression for the first time during the pandemic, and for those with a history of depression, results were even more dismal.

By the fall of 2020, 45% of older adults with a prior depressive episode reported being depressed again.

It is well-known that depression generally, as well as the demand for mental health care, surged because of the pandemic, but few studies have identified the percentage of individuals who experienced depression for the first time after the pandemic began, or the percentage of those with a history of depression who saw it return.

The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, analyzed responses from the ongoing Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), which collected data from 22,622 participants for an average of 7 years.

The participants provided data at the baseline wave of the study (2011–2015); during follow-up 1 wave (2015–2018); and during the pandemic (September–December 2020). The impact of the pandemic on depression among older Canadians may even be greater than observed because vulnerable populations were under-represented in the CLSA.

Several factors linked with depression among older adults during the pandemic were identified, including:

• Inadequate income and savings
• Loneliness
• Chronic pain
• Trouble accessing healthcare,
• History of adverse childhood experiences
• Family conflict

“These findings highlight the disproportionate mental health burden borne by individuals with low socioeconomic status during the pandemic. Many of these socioeconomic risk factors may have been exacerbated by the economic precarity of the pandemic, particularly for individuals with fewer resources,” said one of the authors, Margaret de Groh, PhD, scientific manager at the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Reference

MacNeil A, Birk S, Villeneuve PJ, Jiang Y, de Groh M, Fuller-Thomson E. incident and recurrent depression among adults aged 50 years and older during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022; 19(22):15032. Doi:10.3390/ijerph192215032